The Compound Livestock Feed Manufacturers Association of India (CLFMA), the national trade association that primarily focuses on livestock and poultry feed industry, has extended its interests to aquaculture and requested USSEC to design and implement an aquaculture workshop for entrepreneurs in East India.
Kolkata, situated in the province of West Bengal, is an area that depends on fish for daily food, a food habit primarily driven by culture. West Bengal produces about 1.58 million tons of fish per annum and is second only to the province of Andhra Pradesh, which produces about 2 million tons of fish annually. While Andhra Pradesh uses 35,000 metric tons (MT) of fish feed every month, West Bengal uses only about 3,500 MT per month indicating the need for the adoption of feed technology and the use of advanced fish farming technology. With this objective in mind, CLFMA and USSEC decided to collaborate on a workshop to influence change in market behavior and enhance the use of soy-based fish feed in the region.
USSEC’s feed program has listed capacity utilization of feed mills through market diversification and species diversification as its priorities – the outcome is envisioned as increased soy utilization due to increased feed marketing, says Dr. Vijay Anand who heads the feed/soy meal program for India. The agreement for this event was that USSEC would plan content and provide resource people required for the workshop while CLFMA would bear venue/event expenses, and would be responsible for inviting potential entrepreneurs from the region. Through this arrangement, the industry trade body contributed 50 percent of the funding for the event and also provided office and manpower support that helped extend the marketing reach.
Six renowned resource professionals directly connected with the fish and shrimp sectors of the aquaculture industry were engaged by USSEC to impart technology and trade messages to the 96 entrepreneurs who attended the interactive workshop. Officials of the state government took keen interest in the workshop to grasp technologies and absorb them into government support programs.
This is the second workshop that USSEC has conducted in the region in the past two years and since then, there have been significant inroads made in the utilization of soy-based fish feeds, said R. Umakanth, aquaculture consultant for USSEC India. Deliberations and recommendations made at this workshop further motivated the industry to advance its aquaculture status to produce more fish and shrimp in the region. Dr. Anand adds that collaborating with CLFMA on various soy utilization aspects is advantageous to USSEC because it is a trade body that frequently works with the Government of India and is directly associated with utilization and promotion of the animal feed industry in India.