Balasore: More than 500 shrimp and fish farmers, state administration, scientists, and industry stakeholders participated at the ‘Shrimp Farmers Conclave 2025’ held in Balasore. The ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (CIBA), in association with the Department of Fisheries, Odisha and P2C Communications organized the Conclave.
In a message for the participants, Shri Gokulananda Mallik, Minister for Fisheries & Animal Resources Development, MSME, Government of Odisha highlighted the importance of the conclave for the state.
Inaugurating the national conference, Dr J K Jena, Deputy Director General- Fisheries, ICAR urged the farmers to produce suitable size shrimps and fishes for the domestic market to get assured income for the farmers and break the myth of shrimps are produced for the foreign consumers. He emphasized that the State Department of Fisheries and the shrimp farmers association with the help of processors should prepare a ‘shrimp production and marketing plan’ suggesting the phase and zone wise shrimp farming plan, what to produce for the domestic market and what to produce for export and connect the potential domestic markets and processors with farmer groups.
“Farmers are the fulcrum in any farming sector around whom the technology, inputs, services and market revolve. With regions being unique in terms of resources and production systems, region specific aquaculture planning is necessary”, said Dr Kuldeep Kumar Lal, Director, ICAR-CIBA. He also laid emphasis on the best resource management practices and production systems in brackishwater aquaculture, offering CIBA’s technological solutions for the development of the sector in the state of Odisha.
Dr. A. Panigrahi, Principal Scientist CIBA and coordinator of the conclave in his welcome note underlined that CIBA has developed several technologies to ensure farmers’ profitability and farmers should select appropriate production system and their farm-business plan rather than just emulating fellow farmers whose resources, infrastructure and capacity are entirely different.
“The shrimp farming has undergone a tremendous change over the years with technological interventions. However, it is very important to ensure the financial security of the shrimp farmers. The sessions on insurance and market linkage will help farmers understand the future trends of the shrimp aquaculture,” said Pravash Pradhan, Chief Editor, Aqua Post, sharing his thoughts on the conference.
Shrimp aquaculture is an important agri-business farming system practiced with entrepreneurship approach in the coastal districts. Odisha state has a huge potential of 4.18 lakh hectare suitable for shrimp farming but utilized hardly 4% of that at present with a production of 45000 metric tonnes of shrimp due to many reasons.
