MARGAO
Goa’s seafood export units dotting the industrial estates across the State are working below capacity. After exporting seafood worth Rs 1,300 crore during the last fishing season, around dozen seafood export units are keeping their fingers crossed over fish availability in the ongoing season.
Reason: There’s slump in the fish catch not just in Goa, but across the country’s west coast, from Gujarat to Kanyakumari in down South.
In fact, with two months already over since fishing season commenced on August 1, and no major catch along the coast, the seafood exporters from Goa are facing a worst time in their decades old business.
The poor catch of mackerel and squids, which are in demand in countries, including Malaysia and Thailand, have hit the production of the export units in a big way. “This is the worst fishing year in my entire life. Seafood exporters from Goa had exported around Rs 1,300 crore worth fish in the last season. This year, it has not even crossed Rs 100 crore figure,” leading seafood exporters M Ibrahim said.
He said there’s huge demand for fish such as mackerel in Malaysia and Thailand, but the demand could not be met since there is poor fish catch this season so far. “Mackerel is netted in abundant quantities during this part of the year from the west coast including Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. This year so far, however, fishermen have recorded a poor catch,” he said.
He added: “In the first two months of the new fishing season, we used to send so many fish laden containers to the Mumbai port for shipment to countries such as Malaysia and Thailand. Today, we struggle to send containers to Mumbai.” Ibrahim said most of the seafood from Goa is exported out from the Mumbai port.
To a question over the fish famine witnessed in Goa and in other states, Ibrahim attributed the same to destructive fishing methods such as bull trawling. “In the past, I had written to the Central government, highlighting how bull trawling and other destructive modes of fishing have destroyed the marine resources. May be the excessive use of destructive methods of fish have resulted in the present situation,” he added.
Though the two crucial months of August and September are over without a bumper catch of fish from the sea, the seafood exporters are keeping their fingers crossed and are anxiously waiting for a turn around. “During our childhood days, fishermen used to catch bumper mackerel from the sea after the Fama of the Miraculous Infant Jesus at Colva. We all hope for a turnaround of the situation after the Fama,” Ibrahim added.
