Composite fish farming with Grass Carp
Shri Periaswamy is a farmer of Indranagar village of Manglutan Panchayat of South Andaman having 2 hactares of land. In 2006, he had constructed a pond (0.08 ha) with the financial support of Department of Agriculture, A and N Administration for utilizing the water for agricultural and allied activities. He purchased some fish fingerlings from Department of Fisheries and reared them. After a year he could not harvest the fish due to poor body weight because of low fertility and high stocking of fishes. He had attended the training programme which helped him lot in gaining confidence.
The KVK and Fishery Science Division team visited his pond and found that the fertility of the pond was very poor, as the pond was newly constructed and no organic manure was used by the farmer due to lack of knowledge. As per the advice of the experts, he applied lime and cowdung as per the recommended dose. After testing the water quality, he was issued 150 fingerlings including 20 grass carps from Division of Fisheries of the institute.
He provided feed with GNC and rice bran 1:1 ratio @ 3% of the body weight of the fish. Sufficient amount of local grass and banana leaf was also provided daily for the grass carp. The KVK-CARI team took the harvested fishes and sold @ Rs 100/kg, by which he earned Rs 12,900 from the sale of 129 kg fish and received Rs 5,400 from 18 grass carp fishes. After seeing his interest and dedication, the Division of Fisheries of the Institute selected him as a best fish farmer and awarded him during Kisan Mela organized in February 2009