Impact of COVID-19 on Indian Seafood Industry and Potential Measures for Recovery: A Mini-review

Abstract

Global seafood sector is going through a massive shock during a global-scale disturbance named “COVID-19 Pandemic”. Restricting national and international trade and traffic was the most needed step to contain the spread of virus; meanwhile it has wreaked havoc on all import-export businesses. Seafood sector, is one of the major pillar behind agricultural export (fisheries sector contributing 1.07% to the Indian agricultural GDP) and blue revolution. But due to uncertainty of the lockdown periods, the Indian seafood sector has crashed, affecting livelihoods of all fishing and related communities, export and supply chain (both domestic and international), demand and consumption etc. The sudden crisis has exposed various shortcomings of the sector and expanded our vision to look ahead of temporary solutions and find long-term sustainability. Unavailability of real-time data from planned surveys are one of the major reasons behind this failure. This article aims to highlight the present scenario of the Indian seafood sector during the pandemic through assessing various news articles, national reports and publications. Further it suggests some recovery steps like building up alternative seafood networks, promoting domestic demand and markets, forming fishing community friendly schemes (medical and insurance), adopting new technologies to prevent and handle any future crisis.

Assessing the Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on the Aquaculture and Fisheries Sectors in Relation to Food Security: A Critical Review

“…COVID-19-related disruptions in the US aquaculture sector included loss of revenue, farm labor shortages, difficulty securing production inputs and services, and management challenges relating to the on-farm inventory of unsold fish and shellfish [34]. Similar challenges were faced by the aquaculture value chain actors in India and Bangladesh after experiencing lockdown and other preventive strategies [13][14][15]33,38,39,41,42]. In Bangladesh, fish feed input prices increased considerably [57].…”

“…Travel barriers for seasonal or migrant workers added an obstacle that exacerbated this issue as many were temporarily trapped inside fishing boats, ports, and fishing vessels (Figure 3), as seen in multiple incidents that occurred in India, Thailand, and the South Pacific ocean (an Ecuadorian vessel), respectively [4]. India's nationwide lockdown forced hatchery owners to close their hatcheries, feed mills, and processing plants [33]. Similar impacts were reported in Bangladesh and Myanmar [40].…”

All pain and no gain: Factors impacting local and regional sustainability due to COVID-19 pandemic with respect to the Indian marine fisheries

“…Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant lockdown, the practice of marine fishing was almost stopped which has a significant effect (as shown in Fig. 3) on the marine fishery sector (Mukherjee et al, 2020;Avtar et al, 2021). The complete lockdown in the fishing harbours including fish landing centres (FLCs) is reported to have affected the daily earnings of the fisherfolk population across all the coastal districts in the country.…”

A Multidisciplinary Approach for Improving Resource Efficiency in the Indian Surimi Supply Chain

“…India, with a coastline of over 7500 km and about 7 million hectares of inland water bodies, is a major supplier of seafood to the world [14]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, India experienced a shock in its production and export ability as restrictions were imposed on national and international trade [15], which resulted in a USD 1 billion drop in the export value of fish in 2020 [16]. However, not all seafood caught in India makes it to the frozen or even export stage.…”