In Goa, a meal is incomplete without fish, curry and rice.Goans get restless if there is no fish on their platter. “But man’soverindulgence with the environment has disturbed the cycle of nature and a fewyears from now the sea is not going to be as generous as it was some decadesago,” cautions Maulana M Ibrahim, President of All Goa Wholesale Fish MarketAssociation, citing this year as an example. He said, “The current seasonwitnessed a 50 % drop in the catch translating to a 60 % increase in price offish.”
The 2012-13 was the worst in 10 years. It is felt the reasoncould be the rush to catch as much fish as possible without giving adequatetime for fish to breed. “We are getting only 2/3rd of the total catch expected thisseason. The 100 wholesalers and 9 exporters are running into losses. Of mythree plants operational, I have shut Quality Foods and the second plant is onthe verge of closing in a couple of days” admits Ibrahim, Chief Executive,Quality Exports that focuses on fish processing and exports. His exportstouched Rs 100 crore last fiscal year. Quality Foods is an ISO “ 9000-2000certified company while Quality Exports is Europe Union (EU) approved plant.The quality is monitored by Export Inspection Agency (EIA). The plant has thecapacity to store 1500 tonnes and process 100 tonnes per day. 40% of the labourhas left after being compensated due to a paucity of work this year.
Goa consumes 50tonnes of fish every day. Fve-star hotels which do not consume local fish with90 per cent of these star hotels importing Basa fish fillets from Vietnam andMyanmar. The exporters in Goa process and send raw fish which gets them a lowerrate. If the fish is cleaned it fetcheshigher price in the international market as hygiene counts.
The fishing season isonly 3 months but the industry runs for 12 months and pay salaries even ifthere is no work during rest of the year. For many it’s becoming difficult tosurvive only on seafood exports and they are planning to diversify like Ibrahimwho plans to start cashew processing at Canacona and use the processingcapacity of Quality Foods for meat and vegetable exports. “It’s a survivalgame,” he states.
As the President of Seafood Exporters Association of India(Goa Region) Ibrahim shares, “There were seven seafood exporters in Goa lastyear whose cumulative yearly exports touched 30,000 tonnes. With two newentrants there nine now. Though 80 per cent of the seafood comes from outsideGoa, we have good potential in the seafood export zone if we build upinfrastructure.” The exporters expect the state government to come up with newpolicies and encourage the existing as well as new entrepreneurs. Valueaddition would improve the quality of the seafood and the same catch wouldfetch more value, allowing them to survive in future.
Ibrahim is also the member of Marine Products ExportDevelopment Authority of India that works under the Ministry of Commerce andIndustry (Government of India). MPEDAI is currently studying the futureprospects of enhancing the Indian exports by negotiating terms with existingforeign buyers and also tapping new ones.
