Building Climate Resilience in Smallholder Fish Farming

Fish production in India has witnessed tremendous growth, increasing from 0.75 million MT in 1950-51 to the current production of 1.41 million MT. Till 2000, marine fish production dominated India’s total fish production. However, Inland fisheries in India has seen a turnaround and presently contributes 70 per cent of total fish production. Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Assam, and Telangana account for around 83 per cent of the total inland fish production, with Andhra Pradesh alone accounting for around 34 per cent. Based on the data pertaining to fish production, encompassing both inland and marine sources for the year 2021-227, a selection of 13 states across India was made. These states include Andhra Pradesh, acknowledged for having the highest inland fish production, along with Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir (known for cold fisheries), Assam, Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh (recipient of the Best State-Inland Fisheries Award 2023), West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh (recipient of the Best State-Inland Fisheries Award 2022). Subsequently, the identification of specific districts within these chosen states was carried out by considering the number of fishermen actively involved in fishing activities.

The overall objective of the study is to build the capacities of the smallholder fish farmers in India (6,000 in number of which at least 1,200 are women) on the following topics: i) climate resilient farming best practices in aquaculture, adapted to the needs of women and the local context; and ii) functional financial literacy, including farm budget management and understanding agro-economic models, access to credit and savings, and the economics of climate resilient capital investment.