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ICAR-CIFRI developed the fish feeds from silk worm waste: A waste to wealth initiatives

27^th April, 2022
The silk worm pupae are a waste of silk industry which has a lot of resources across the country. In India five types of silk work waste are available among which mulberry has abundant resources. There is a need to have a strategy to convert these potential waste resources to wealth. With this background, ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CIFRI), Barrackpore ventured in a collaborative project with Central Tasar Research & Training Institute (CTRTI), Ranchi on “Utilisation and Diversification of Silkworm Pupae Products for Human & Animal Consumption and Composting”. The ICAR-CIFRI has been working on these types of novel areas of research since 2009 starting from Brewery waste to black soldier fly, and silkworm pupae. Institute has already commercialised one feed from Brewery waste namely, CIFRI CAGE GROW.

Today, a review meeting for the collaborative project was held at ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CIFRI), Barrackpore. The programme commenced with the welcome address by Dr. B. K. Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI, Barrackpore. In the welcome address Dr. Das welcomed Dr. K. Sathyanarayana, Director, and Dr. K. Jena, Scientist- D, Central Tasar Research and Training Institute (CTRTI), Ranchi. The programme was attended by the project team comprising Co-Principal Investigators, Dr. M.A. Hassan HoD, Fisheries Enhancement and Management (FEM) Division, Dr. D. K. Meena, Scientist (S.S.), Dr. Rahul Das, Scientist, project staff, and progressive fish famers (30 nos.) from the different places of West Bengal including Sunderbans. In the inaugural speech, Dr. Sathyanarayana thanked Dr. Das and his team for their sincere efforts towards the project. He emphasized upon the effective valorisation of the silkworm pupae for the conversion of silk industry waste to wealth in terms of cost-effective fish feed for candidate fish species. Dr. Das, the Principal Investigator of the Project, in his presentation appraised the project work and highlighted the significant achievements such as feed formulation and feasibility testing of SilkWorm Pupae Meal (SWPM) based fish feed in candidate fish species. A total of four complete feed of 1mm(fry), 2mm (fingerling), 3mm (grow-out), and 4mm (grow-out and brooder) pellet size were formulated and named as Reshmeen (CP-38%), Resmeen Amrit (CP-32%), Resmeen Gold+(CP-28%), and Reshmeen Gold (CP-25%), respectively.

The developed feeds were tested in Tilapia niloticus and Pangasianodon hypophthalmus and showed comparative growth and survival under indoor feed trials. The best suitable formulation was tried in cages installed at Maithon Reservoir, Jharkhand, and revealed a similar trend of growth performances. The feeds were also found equally effective for carps, herbivores, and omnivore fish species. The 30 kg feed was distributed to the fish farmers for trial in their water bodies. Thus, the present investigation paved a way for safe and effective valorisation of silk worm waste to convert into fish feed which may in turn to doubling fisher’s income.