Fish as food can not only help generate employment and incomes for the rural population, but also help fight pervasive protein deficiency in the country.

This was the message during an interactive meeting between fish feed producers and aquaculture experts representing the American Soybean Association (ASA), in the presence of local media representatives here on Sunday.

According to Dr Michael Cremer, global aquaculture technical director of ASA, feed-based technologies in practice in some of the Asian countries have shown beyond doubt that soya-based fish feeds have delivered immense commercial benefits.

The work done so far in India has resulted in the country emerging as a significant producer of soya-based extruded floating feeds and sinking pellets for fish. “Indian entrepreneurs have invested in imported extrusion machinery to produce floating fish feeds,” said Dr Vijay Anand, technical director of ASA's Asia subcontinent aquaculture programme.

Currently, there are as many as seven feed mills with installed capacity of 72 tonnes an hour which is set to soon expand to 203 tonnes an hour.

Soyabean meal is the main source of protein in the formulations and the incorporation levels are in the 35-45 per cent range. Other ingredients used include rice-bran, broken rice, wheat bran, wheat flour, corn gluten meal and copra meal.

Conceding that feed is only a part of aquaculture value chain, the aquaculture industry needs species diversification — in addition to the current carp and Pangasius — improved hatchery technology, refinement of farming system, diversification of farming system and improved fish marketing for better consumer acceptance, Dr Cremer said.

Earlier in the day, this correspondent was witness to harvesting of a record 20,000 kg of fish — each weighing one kg on an average — by renowned feed-makers Growel Feeds from a leased pond near Gudivada. The fish were fed soya-based feed.

India's fish production is approximately 8 million tonnes and the fisheries sector provides employment to about 15 million persons. Given that we have 7,000-km-long coastline and the biodiversity, the potential offered by fisheries sector is immense.

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