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activities such as fingerling stocking, preparing and feeding fish,
pond management through fertilization and liming, net making
and repairing, fish harvesting and marketing, and fish drying.
Children also help the family in their spare time. Recently,
cage culture has been effectively introduced in Bangladesh and
women are involved in raising fish in the cages.
In Sri Lanka, fish farming is now being promoted with the
aim of doubling production from aquaculture sources, as only
one-quarter of the area suitable for aquaculture is currently
in use. Government-sponsored programmes aim at achieving
this goal through sustainable aquaculture development, tech-
nology transfer, training programmes, food safety and quality,
and environmental integrity. The land-based farming sector
in Sri Lanka is also receiving increased attention. Traditional
earthen pond farming of shrimp and finfish is slowly increas-
ing, and families are now following a strict coastal zone
management plan regulating the time for stocking and harvest
in different farming regions. Stocking densities are steadily
increasing with good environmental monitoring and control.
Involvement of families
In India, about 864,550 families are engaged in the marine
fisheries sector according to the recent marine fisheries
census (2010). This translates to a population of 3,999,214
and of this, 91 per cent are traditional fishers. In Sri Lanka,
about 172,100 families are engaged in marine fisheries with
a population of 825,200 in 2010. While information on the
number of families engaged in Bangladesh and Maldives is
not available, the total marine fisher population in Bangladesh
is approximately 0.9 million and in Maldives about 14,000.
Fisheries census data from India shows that about 65 per
cent of the total population is adult and about 41 per cent
is employed. Comparing these two ratios, it can be said that
nearly every able-bodied fisher family member participates
in the production process. The same can be seen in other
countries. As a unit, a fisher family participates in harvesting
(male), unloading and auctioning (male and female), process-
ing (female) and marketing (female and male). Although
women are not much engaged in production, in some areas,
they do collect seaweed and also operate push nets.
Marine capture fisheries being a high risk activity, accidents are
common and inmost cases the male members engaged in produc-
tion fall victim to such calamities. In such a scenario, women play a
major role in providing for the families. For example, in the Indian
scenario, the census shows that in 41,239 fisher families, only
women are engaged in the fisheries sector. In Bangladesh, fisher-
women are also playing an important role in advocacy, especially
in improving the safety at sea of their menfolk.
Apart from marine fisheries, large numbers of people are also
engaged in inland fisheries and aquaculture. Especially in India
and Bangladesh, where inland fisheries and aquaculture are at
par with the marine fisheries sector, many families derive their
livelihoods from these activities. However, specific information
on families engaged in inland capture fisheries is sparse.
Sustaining family farming
Much like versatile fisheries resources, fishing practices in
the region are also varied. With increasing capitalization,
the role of family farming is waning while commercial enter-
prises are emerging. Although, in most places, nearly all
eligible members of a fisher family participate in production
(including distribution), they are now becoming labourers
and implementing decisions, rather than being the owner-
labour and decision-makers they once were. There is also a
noticeable trend of in-migration to marine fisheries from other
sectors for better returns. In such cases, the migrant enters
marine fishery as an individual answerable to a particular
company or owner of the fishing craft he is employed with.
As far as marine fisheries are concerned, the situation is like a
cyclical trap. Increasing capitalization is leading to depletion of
resources, especially in near-shore waters, and depleted resources
are leading to the need to invest more to venture further into the
sea, with efficient gear and better fishing vessels. For example, a
study carried out in India shows that during 2000, non-mecha-
nized (non-powered/artisanal) fishing vessels landed 7 per cent
of the total landings of fish by employing 33 per cent of the work-
force while the mechanized (trawlers, gillnetters, purse-seiner
etc) landed 70 per cent of the total by employing 34 per cent of
the workforce. The differences in landings reflect heavily on the
fishers’ incomes and while an artisanal fisherman earned about
INR13,200 per year, a fishermen engaged in mechanized fishing
earned in the tune of INR127,200 (INR60 = US$1).
4
Resultantly,
people engaged in non-mechanized artisanal fisheries are increas-
ingly moving towards mechanized fishing.
Growth in the number of active fishers in South Asia
Source: BOBP-IGO Annual Report, 2012/13
Country
Base year
Number
Latest year
Number
Growth
Bangladesh
2007
510,000
2011
516,000
0.3%
India
2005
901,815
2010
1,002,723
2.2%
Maldives
2003
14,891
2012
10,264
-3.5%
Sri Lanka
2004
132,600
2012
180,693
4.5%
South Asia
2003
1,547,019
2012
1,697,040
1.1%
D
eep
R
oots