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Since the late 1960s, brackishwater rural aquaculture in West Bengal grew and improved at a fast rate, from an extensive method of farming to a modified-extensive method. The indigenous bheri fishery is a well-known extensive aquaculture system throughout all coastal states of India. Bheri fishery isn’t a capital-intensive practice. This article describes farming practices in bheri systems in West Bengal, India, including their integration with mangrove aquaculture. A second part of this article will be published in the next issue.

NACA is set to embark on a journey with FAI Farms to educate, train and support fish and shrimp farmers on animal welfare. NACA and FAI are currently working on a program for the coming year to educate and train farmers on fish and shrimp welfare through a series of workshops and webinars. Furthermore, the series of online training courses “Welfare in tilapia production guideline” will be freely available to the NACA network to disseminate knowledge on the welfare of aquatic animals. In addition to trainings, workshops and online courses, FAI has developed a Tilapia welfare application that will put welfare directly into the hands of the farmer.

Hilsa are a highly favoured food fish on the Indian subcontinent, but wild populations have been declining very fast due to over exploitation and disturbance of their riverine spawning grounds. Hilsa have a complex life cycle, migrating from the sea to riverine environments to spawn and are very sensitive to handling, which has complicated efforts to breed them in captivity. The ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture has initiated a programme to domesticate hilsa to reduce dependence on wild catch. This article documents the first successful approaches to rear larvae through to table sized fish and to develop mature hilsa broodstock in a farm environment.

Today, tribal people comprise 8.6 percent of the Indian population and are one of the most disadvantaged sections of society. Many tribal groups in different parts of the country depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, to which their access has been progressively eroded. With financial support from ICAR-CIFT the College of Fisheries, Gumla, undertook seven training programmes for tribal women from economically marginalised tribal communities in the preparation and marketing of value-added fisheries products. The training encouraged women to develop small businesses building on their micro-entrepreneurship.

With the implementation of the new aquatic animal disease reporting in the Asia Pacific region from January 2021, and in lieu of the published QAAD Reports (last issue published was 4th quarter of 2020), NACA is publishing reported aquatic animal diseases submitted by countries in the Asia-Pacific region.  This report covers the third quarter of 2022 and the original and updated reports can be accessed at the QAAD page.