Marine Fish Consumption Increases In India

Crisis

The estimated marine fish landings from all the maritime states and two union territories in the main land of India for the year 2019 is 3.56 million tonnes showing an increase of 2.1% in comparison to landings in 2018 (3.49 million tonnes).

Tamil Nadu moved to the first position replacing Gujarat, which was holding the first position for the past few years, with 7.75 lakh tonnes comparedto 7.02 lakh tonnes in 2018 (10.4% increase) accounting for 21.8% of the total landings in the country. An important feature of the fishery in 2019 is that at national level Redtoothed trigger fish (Odonus niger) became the major resource in the harvests with its landings increasing to 2.74 lakh tonnes from 0.72 lakh tonnes in 2018.

The highest setback is for the Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta) with huge reduction in its landings to the tune of 1.18 lakh tonnes at a national level. Indian oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps) which used to be topmost contributor to the India’s marine fish basket, continued reduction in landings with 6% decrease compared to 2018.

The year 2019 was very unusual for the Indian coast with almost 8 cyclonic storms in and around India of which 6 turned out to be severe cyclones – Fani in April, Vayu in June, Hika in September, Kyarr in October, Maha in Oct-Nov and Bulbul in Oct-Nov which adversely affected fishing calendar days especially in the west coast.