ICAR-CIFRI Awarded Progressive Fish Farmers of India on National Fish Farmers Day-2024 @ Smiling Fisher for Viksit Bharat

ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), a premier research Institute in the inland fisheries sector celebrated “National Fish Farmers Day-2024” at its Headquarters, Barrackpore, Kolkata on 10 July 2024. The ‘National Fish Farmers’ Day has been fervently celebrated on 10th July every year to commemorate the stupendous achievement of induced breeding technique, which is considered the torchbearer of ‘First Blue Revolution’ in India. Prof. Hiralal Chaudhary and his dedicated team pioneered the ‘Induced Breeding technique which was successfully developed in Angul Fish Farm at Cuttack, Odisha on 10th July 1957 under the then Central Inland Fisheries Research Station, presently known as ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CIFRI), Barrackpore.

Currently, fishery is a fast-growing sector in India, exhibiting an average annual growth of 8.8% in the year 2023-24. The sector has achieved a record fish production of 17.54 million tonnes (mt) in FY 2023-24 from meagre 0.7 mt in 1950-51, making India the second-largest fish-producing country in the world approaching towards achieving Second Blue revolution by 2025 onwards targeting a production of 22.0 mt. This accounts for 8% of global production, contributing about 1.09% to the country’s GDP and more than 7.01% to the agricultural GDP.

The current research of ICAR-CIFRI focused on improving productivity of medium and large reservoirs, wetlands, establishing river restoration protocols, addressing sustainable development goals (SDGs) targeting livelihood of fishers, nutritional security, conservation of fish fauna, etc. and determining environmental flow requirements for open water fisheries.

ICAR-CIFRI solemnly observed “National Fish Farmers Day-2024” like every year on 10 July 2024 at its headquarter, Barrackpore in the august presence of  ‘Honoured Guests Shri Biplab Roy Chowdhury, Minister of Department of Fisheries, Govt of West Bengal and Gabriel D. Wangsu, Minister, Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry & Veterinary & Fisheries, Food & Civil Supply, Legal Metrology & Consumer Affairs, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh, about 150 fishers and fish farmers including 27 women farmers, Entrepreneurs, NGOs, Researchers, of this sector.

Twelve Progressive Fish Farmers being selected from eight states viz, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Manipur, Kerala, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh have been awarded for their outstanding contributions in Fisheries Sector in this occasion.

The programme was initiated with floral tribute to Dr. Hiralal Choudhury. The primary goal of celebrating National Fish Farmers' Day is to increase public awareness of technologies that are beneficial to the stakeholders in fisheries sector.

In his remarks, Biplab Roy Chowdhury, the Chief Guest of the program invoked the fishers and fish farmers to come forward to enhance production and productivity from their available resources embracing and adopting technologies developed by CIFRI utilizing need-based fund support from PMMSY extended by DoF, WB. Wangshu, Minister of Arunachal Pradesh expressed his satisfaction over the CIFRI activities in re-shaping fisheries sector in his state benefiting to agrarian communities.

The Awardee farmers should percolate their knowledge and experiences to the stakeholders enabling others to uplift their livelihood means as suggested by Dr B K Das, Director of the Institute.  Huge unexplored potentials remain existed in this sector which should be tapped judiciously by the stakeholders, Dr Das reiterated.