NABARD stresses on Aquaculture for rural development

January 17 , 2009 Bhubaneswar

As many as 22 District Development Managers of NABARD, the apex refinancing agency for agriculture and rural development attended the “Scientists-Managers interface meet' held today at CIFA, Kausalyaganga on the outskirt of the city. Welcoming the managers, Director of CIFA, Dr. Ambekar E. Eknath complimented the liasoning provided by the NABARD between credit agencies and development departments. Aquaculture has proved to be a weapon in removing poverty and malnutrition. He urged them to be the ‘change agents' and improve the life of millions living in rural areas.

NABARD GM Sri M.K. Mudgal said the DDMs enjoy lot of credibility in their command areas and through them innovative technologies will find immediate acceptance by the users.Besides facilitating faster technology adoption by farmers and entrepreneurs they will also help generate greater demand for institutional credit. Profitability and not productivity is now important. A farmer today asks how much will be the return per unit area be it from agriculture or fisheries. Composite carp culture, prawn farming, fish seed production, ornamental fish farming etc. are becoming popular and would pave the way for fast socio-economic development, he added.

NABARD Initiatives

• Familiarizing officers with latest farm technologies
• Creating awareness and technology transfer at grassroots level 74 villages adopted under village adoption programme
• Ovetailing efforts of various stakeholders for comprehensive development
• Financial inclusion of nearly 50% of the population

As a part of the programme, DDMs are exposed to latest R&D efforts of the Institute. They were familiarized with the ‘transferrable technologies' developed by the institute for dissemination. The managers were taken to various facilities of the Institute viz., Fish farm, aquarium, Agricultural Technology Information Centre, hatcheries, feed mill etc. A set of farm literature was distributed to them. During the interaction meet the scientists addressed their queries on various aspects of freshwater aquaculture technologies including economic aspects.

The interface meet was coordinated by Dr. K. Kumar and Dr. G.S.Saha, Senior Scientists of the Institute.

Media contact details:
Himansu K. De
Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (Indian Council of Agricultural Research)
Kausalyaganga, Bhubaneswar, Orissa 751 002 Tel. 0674-2465890 ext. 112. Mobile: 9437303382
Email: hkde@sify.com