The Hindu Business Line : Kakinada gets aqua farming society

A society has been established here jointly by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in the Asia-Pacific (NACA) to propagate sustainable aqua farming practices and educate farmers on the techniques and lend support to them.

The first governing council meeting of the society, named the National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture, will be held here on Thursday, according to Mr S. Anis, Deputy Director of the regional office of MPEDA located at Vijayawada. He will be the Chief Executive Officer of the National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture.

The National Centre proposes to organise shrimp farmers and set up primary co-operative societies. The MPEDA will initially give each co-operative society Rs 5 lakh to employ a trained technician, set up a laboratory and establish a common auction hall and other facilities. Each primary society can have 20-80 members belonging to the same village or the creek.

According to Mr Anis, there are over one lakh aqua farmers in Andhra Pradesh and culture is being carried out in 96,000 hectares (waterspread area being 77,500 ha). "Most of them, nearly 90 per cent, are small farmers or marginal ones. We are setting up the society for their benefit," he said and added that the society would have branches in other States.

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