“Balancing Profits with the Planet” in the Perspective of Expansion of Aquaculture
Shlok Nemani
Research fellow at MRC
Key Highlights
- Economic growth should not come at the cost of the environment and nature.
- Aquaculture has the potential to transform the lives of rural communities.
- Sustainable development is a crucial aim to be fulfilled by all developing sectors to achieve long-term growth and infrastructure development.
- Science and Technology are the pillars of the Underwater domain awareness framework that can be used to achieve sustainability.
- Shrimps have shown derogatory effects on the regions where they are cultivated and hence, adequate measures and planning are required for sustainable expansion.
The seafood and aquaculture
The seafood industry is a flourishing industry with ever-increasing demand due to rising awareness regarding fish and associated marine creatures as a safer and healthy source of vital nutrients rather than synthetic supplements. Thus, the seafood industry has become a lucrative business for various nations, to contribute to economic growth. In case one wonders, how the various seafood-centric delicacies they enjoy reach their plate, then they have to understand that there is a long and complex marine products supply chain in the game. The first step in this supply chain involves the mass-scale cultivation of marine creatures for human consumption and as raw material for secondary industries. Yes, one read it right! These creatures are not fished from their natural habitat but are specially cultivated for their intrinsic value and revenues. This mass-scale cultivation of sea animals or marine creatures is what is described as aquaculture or aqua cultivation, just like agriculture which describes the cultivation of crops. The growing aquaculture industry is serving various purposes towards self-reliance for the Indian economy and its citizens. Aquaculture has also become a source of livelihood for many farmers in rural areas and thus contributes to social harmony as well as the upliftment of the rural section of society. Various processing industries are developed around aquaculture to processing the raw produce from aquaculture to create products with high market value and thus generate employment for many.
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Shlok Nemani
Research fellow at MRC
Shlok Nemani is a fourth-year student, in the Department of Electrical Engineering, at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He has worked as an intern at Texas Instruments, and Maritime Research Center in his third year of study. He is currently doing a fellowship at the Maritime Research Center (MRC) where he working on developing technological solutions for sustainable expansion of aquaculture. His projects span through the concepts in Cryptology and hardware.