Asian-Pacific Aquaculture 2019

June 19 - 21, 2019

Chennai Tamil Nadu - India

SCOPE OF INTEGRATED MULTI-TROPHIC AQUACULTURE (IMTA) IN INDIAN MARICULTURE

Imelda Joseph
ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute
Post Box No.1603, Kochi- 682 018, Kerala, India
imeldajoseph@gmail.com
 

IMTA aims at an ecosystem management that considers site specifications, operational limitations, food safety guidelines and regulations. The goals include environmental sustainability through biomitigation, social acceptability through economic stability and product diversification, reduction of risks, and better management practices. In IMTA the wastes generated from one species are recycled to become inputs for another as fertilizers, feed and energy. In IMTA the fed species like finfishes and shrimps are integrated, in the right proportions, with species which are suspension feeders, deposit feeders or herbivorous fish and species which are extractive(e.g. seaweeds). Multi-trophic implies incorporation of species from different trophic or nutritional levels in the same system. It involves intensive cultivation of different species in proximity of each other, connected by nutrient and energy transfer through water by a balance of the biological and chemical processes. This balance is achieved by selection of appropriate species in the right proportions to meet with the different ecosystem functions. A successful IMTA should result in better production from the farming system, based on mutual benefits to the co-cultured species and improved ecosystem health, even if the individual production of some of the species is lower compared to what could be reached in monoculture practices over a short term period (Neori et al., 2004). In India, the scope of IMTA is very high because of the diversity available in species that can be farmed, the tropical climate prevalent which is conducive for farming both fed and non-fed species and the increasing demand for a variety of farmed species for domestic consumption as well as export. In any variety of the IMTA systems, the co-cultured species should be more than just biofilters and should be of commercial value (including in terms of biodiversity). Finfishes like cobia Rachycentron canadum, Asian seabass Lates calcarifer, Orange spotted grouper Epinephelous coioides etc. for which hatchery technology of seed production available in India, are the major maricultured species in India.  Capture based mariculture of mangrove snapper Lutjanus argentimaculatus and giant trevally Caranx ignobilisare is also practiced in several pockets of the Indian coast. Non- fed bivalve species like green mussel Perna viridis and edible oyster Crassostrea madrasensis are also farmed to a greater extent in the country. Extractive species farmed are some red and brown sea weeds like Gracilaria edulis and Kappaphycus alvarezii are having good market demand for non-edible purposes. However, IMTA is not being practiced in a commercial scale in India. Since mariculture is considered as the future of Indian seafood industry, IMTA has greater scope and prospects. Once the mariculture policy is implemented, the strategy should be more towards enhanced production in a sustainable manner based on lessons learnt in other countries where mariculture has come to a standstill due to many reasons including eutrophication leading to pollution, diseases and parasites and loss of suitable sites. If IMTA is taken as the new and innovative approach for mariculture in India, it is expected to revolutionize production in a sustainable manner in the country.