Fish farmers in the district, who have been at the receiving end of the COVID 19-induced conditions and virtual shutdown in sales over several months, are now looking to a new season of hope with the Christmas-New Year celebrations around the corner and an expected rise in demand for fresh fish. But, farmers were still struggling to overcome the devastating effects of the unprecedented heavy rain since early January and the rapidly increasing price of fish feed, said Seljan Attipetty, a fish farmer in Kumbalanghi. He said he was quite new to the business of fish farming but hoped to make good use of the emerging festival season, by also making use of social media platforms to market the harvest. The Palliakkal Service Cooperative Bank near North Paravur has announced freshly-caught farmed fish sales between December 21 and 24. The cooperative has several groups of farmers under its initiative engaged in fish culture, farming, dairying and poultry and the cooperative expects to harvest around eight tonnes of pearl spot (karimeen), tilapia, trevally (vatta) and sea bass (kalanchi) over the four days. For home delivery, customers may contact 9497289000.
The cooperative had also arranged for home delivery of the freshly-caught fish in areas like North Paravur, Aluva and Edappally, said a spokesman for the cooperative on Thursday. There will also be a food festival during the four days. V.M. Joseph Shibu in Kottappuram said fish farmers in the district were seeing a revival of fortunes after the heavy rain. More than the COVID-19 lockdown, the heavy unseasonal rain had resulted in loss of fingerlings, said Mr. Shibu, who is engaged in cage fish farming and sells around 200 kg of fish per month. Most of the fish farmers are offering pearl spot, sea bass and tilapia, and the majority have switched to cage farming. They expect the prices to be remunerative considering the demand for live fish in the market. At the same time, Mr. Shibu said there was a tendency among wholesale buyers to push down the price even as direct marketing continued to be a problem. P.G. Antony, who is engaged in cage farming near Kottappuram, said farmers were facing severe feed shortage. The price of feed had gone up from around Rs.22-24 a kg to about Rs.30.
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