The recent flood in Kerala severely affected the open water cage culture activities in the central districts of Alapuzha, Ernakulam and Thrissur. The flood completely washed off majority of the coastal cages along with the cultured fishes. The loss was in terms of cage structure and nets, harvest size fishes and juvenile fishes stocked in cages. Loss in the terms of fishes were almost complete in all cages either died due to heavy water flow, poor water qualities including the muddy waters, damaged nets or escaped in a lower extent. Many farmers lost their entire cage structures and investments. Some cases cages along with the produce disappeared overnight as the flow rate was increased unexpectedly. The farmers were unable to do anything to protect their cages even though they saw their cages are getting damaged. Some tried to protect their cages but huge trees or other structures damaged their cages completely or partially. The loss in terms of money varied from 2 to 25 lacks per person depending on the number of cages, fishes stocked and size of the fishes in the cages during the time of disaster. Most of the farmers were distressed as they were either in their initial stages of farming or might have done for one or two years after having a good investment for this new technology and the entire things were lost. The condition of the new youth and the women farmers are very severe because they have started cage farming either with loan or spending their entire savings expecting that they could develop it as an entrepreneurship. Lack of policies and insurance coverage in the cage farming sector has become a major impediment in the situation and the issue needs to be seriously addressed in the wake of this extreme situation.
However, none of the real farmers doesn't wanted to leave the cage farming activities as it is very lucrative and sound technology for the poor, middle and high end-entrepreneurs and they approached CMFRI for further assistance and with the support of CMFRI and other Govt. agencies the coastal cage farming activities in these areas started and it is blooming unlike any other type of farming. Another interesting observation made is that many of the farmers have adopted the new floating GI cages instead of the old small artisanal types of fixed or floating cages made with PVC pipes. The advantages they are finding is the longevity, high stocking capacity, steadiness of the cages and the easy way of operation of the new cages even though the cost is little high. The banks and other financial agencies are also ready to support these farmers further as they are also convinced with the new cage farming technologies with the short period of one or two years. Present study revealed that combined efforts of all these groups are making the cage farming activity again a great entrepreneurship in these areas and it is growing very fast in a steady manner. This reveals the strength of the cage culture technology and its impacts on farmers.