CIFRI Awards
ICAR-CIFRI, Barrackpore celebrated the National fish farmers’ Day, 2022 at Moyna fisheries hub, East Medinipur, West Bengal in collaboration with Moyna Ramkrishnayan Association. On this day CIFRI also celebrated the National Campaign on ‘Emerging Aquaculture Systems and practices’ with the sub theme of intensive and industrial aquaculture systems to promote innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives in aquaculture sector.
Every year on July 10th, National Fish Farmers' Day is observed to honour the tremendous accomplishment of the induced breeding technique by Dr Hira Lal Chaudhury and Dr. K. H. Alikhuni. On July 10, 1957, the Central Inland Fisheries Research Station, Barrackpore, successfully established this technique in Angul fish farm, Odisha. Prof. Hiralal Chaudhary succeeded to breeding of carp, Cirrhinus reba. This technique was later used to breed Cirrhinus mrigala, Labeo rohita, and Puntius sarana. This event was a significant turning point in the history of Indian fisheries that revolutionized aquaculture and led to the country's blue revolution in the early 1970s.
Currently, fisheries a fast-growing sector in India, exhibiting an average annual growth of 8.9 % in the year 2022. This sector has recorded a volume of 17.4 million tons in 2021.
Dr. B. K. Das, Director, CIFRI along with the guests paid homage to the revered scientist Prof. Hiralal Chaudhary with garlands and lamp lighting. Dr. Aparna Roy welcomed all the dignitaries and shared the significance of celebrating National Fish Farmers’ Day on 10th July.
Dr. B.K. Das, Director, CIFRI in his Presidential address highlighted on the application of various aquaculture practices for improvement of production from fish farming and therefore livelihood of the fishers. He focused on the requirement of the participation of one and all in this approach. He offered the establishment of a water quality testing center at Moyna and also assured of expert guidance from CIFRI as and when required. In today’s programme technology partners of CIFRI were also felicitated to acknowledge their role in materializing the products from the research lab to be used by the farmers in the fields.
Mr. Sasanka Maity, Scretary, Moyna Ramkrishnayan Association thanked the Director and the team from CIFRI for their presence and their contribution in development of fisheries in Moyna fisheries hub and also requested for conduction of monthly water and soil quality analysis to deal with fish disease and subsequent mortality.
Prof. S.K. Das, WBUAFS, addressed the farmers on the “Emerging trends in Aquaculture”. He highlighted on the benefits of adaptation of need based technology over adaptation of popular technologies without considering its effectiveness.Dr. B. K. Mahapatra, Retd. Pr. Scientist, CIFE, Kolkata RRS stressed on the scopes of ornamental fishery and informed farmers on various cost-effective ways of adapting this technology and the market value and demand with an International perspective.
Dr. S. Samanta, HoD, REF Division, CIFRI spoke on “Importance of soil and water quality management for sustainable fisheries management” and explained the impact of various water and soil quality parameters in fisheries practices in a simplified way for the benefit of the farmers.
Dr. B. K. Behera, HoD, AEBN Division, CIFRI spoke on “Importance of Biofloc/RAS technology” as adapting measure in resource limited conditions.
Dr. A.K. Das, In-charge, E&T Cell, CIFRI, proposed the vote of thanks.
Approximately 500 farmers attended the programme including 150 women farmers. The event started with a farmer-scientist interactive session in which the experts discussed the prospects and problems of inland fishery sectors and mitigation challenges. 
On this occasion, diagnostic camp was organised with experts in technology, environmental monitoring, aquaculture, and health to facilitate fish farmers to advance toward scientific fisheries management where samples of diseased fishes were collected along with chemical analysis of sample waters for informing the farmers about the health of the water body. The programme gained large media exposure in print, electronic and digital media. Also programmes were organised through the community radio centers to ensure its reach to a large number of local populace.
The primary goal of celebrating National Fish Farmers' Day is to increase public awareness of technologies that are beneficial to the fishing sector. Observing days dedicated to fish farming can bring together scientists, fish farmers, and policymakers to address the inland fisheries issues assuring economic growth, livelihood support and nutritional security.Moyna fish farm has been declared a ‘Fishery hub’ by the state govt. for its impact in fisheries in 2019. It is therefore expected that programmes like this would be immensely effective for its members and would lead this organization towards even bigger achievements in the fisheries sector.
The Program was coordinated by Dr Aparna Roy, Ms Anjana Ekka and Ms Nirupada Chanu.
