The lockdown on account of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) adversely impacted the food production sector including aquaculture, globally. Unfortunately, it coincided with the major shrimp farming season in India which contributes 60% of the national annual shrimp production hence the impact was substantial. An on-line survey was carried out among the stakeholders of the shrimp farming sector to evaluate the prospective impact of COVID-19 related lockdown across the shrimp supply chain. The study estimated an economic loss of 1.50 billion USD to the shrimp aquaculture sector during the current year. It is expected that shrimp production and its export performance may be declining by 40% in the current season. The Garret ranking and Rank Based Quotient analyses projected severe constraints in shrimp seed production and supply, disruptions in the supply chain, logistics, farming, processing, marketing and loss of employment and income for the workers due to the pandemic. To mitigate the impact, the Government of India declared fisheries and aquaculture as an essential activity, facilitated the movement of inputs and services. Further, a major Fisheries Development Scheme(PMMSY) with a financial outlay of 267 million USD has been announced to usher in a blue revolution by strengthening the value chain, doubling the fisher/farmer income, employment generation, economic and social security for fishers/fish farmers adhering to the sustainability principles. Short and medium-term technical and policy measures are suggested to tide over the impact of COVID-19 related lockdown and related restrictions.
Shrimp aquaculture in India is synonymous with coastal aquaculture. Like other agricultural activities, it appropriates a wide range of environmental goods and services, and is vulnerable to impacts of climate change as the cultured animals are sensitive to various kinds of biotic and abiotic stressors. Climate change affects the shrimp aquaculture directly by extreme weather events and seasonal variations, and indirectly alter the primary and secondary productivity, structure and composition of the ecosystems or by influencing the availability of fishmeal, fish oil and other goods and services required for aquaculture farmers. The perceptions of farmers on the impacts of climate change on shrimp aquaculture in inland and coastal areas of Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh are discussed. Cyclone and flood were perceived by all the farmers, whereas irregular season, high temperature, heavy rain and drought were perceived by 79, 89, 91 and 5 % of farmers, respectively. Environmental, biological, and economic impacts of climate change drivers on aquaculture indicated 20 to 30 % loss due to seasonal variations and 50 to 100% loss due to extremely heavy rainfall, flood and cyclones. The economic risk rating was high with flood followed by the cyclone and the magnitude was more in coastal areas compared to inland areas. There is no universally applicable list of adaptation measures and need to be evaluated for individual aquaculture systems. Autonomous and planned adaptation measures to be implemented by farmers, researchers and policymakers are discussed for climate-resilient aquaculture. Planned adaptive measures are either at the primary level or non-existence, hence policy initiatives are required to formulate planned adaptive measures to enhance the adaptive capacity of the farmers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.