The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown in India, followed by the outbreak, has affected lakhs of livelihood in rural areas as prawn farming has totally gone downwards, jeopardising the lives of nearly 30 lakh farmers across the coastal regions of India.
Almost 500 hatcheries in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tami Nadu and Gujarat have to drain 50 lakh to one crore seeds in the past 10 days as the farmers are too scared to come to work because of the coronavirus and also the lockdown had also affected transportation during the months of March and April which is the season of releasing the seeds into ponds.
Raja Manohar Somasundaram, CEO, Aquaconnect, an aquaculture technology venture who recently released a helpline number to help the farmers, says, We witness that there is confusion among farmers around the recent lockdown announcement from the Govt. of India due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As the summer culture is about to begin, they are worried about the transportation of important farm inputs such as seed and feed. Also, there is a lack of clarity on the market dynamics due to the lockdown, which we aim to bring through the launch of our helpline. We have industry experts who are constantly monitoring the Government orders and their implementation on the ground. We are partnering with veteran farm technicians, farmers and processors to gather information and share it with farmers through the helpline service
In order to help the farmers who are too scared to go near the farm because of the coronavirus outbreak, they have suggested the farmers work from home with the help of the advisory solution farmMOJO.
We are also encouraging our farmers to avoid frequent farm visits, considering this challenging time, and suggest them to manage the pond activities from home using our free mobile advisory solution FarmMOJO. This helps them to keep updated on their farm operations remotely and be able to take decisions accordingly, Raj added.
The Draft National Fisheries Policy 2020 says that nearly 16 million people earn their livelihood from the fishing sector, which contributes 1 per cent of India’s GDP.
BW BUSINESSWORLD 2018