Ludhiana-06-Dec, 2011: Ornamental fishes are gaining popularity now a day due to their fascinating world and continuous increasing demand among the hobbyists and professionals. To cater the ever increasing demand and interest of the people in the field of ornamental fishes, 2-day training programme on “Ornamental fish culture and seed production” was organized for the trainees from different districts of Punjab at Department of Aquaculture, College of Fisheries, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), Ludhiana on 5-6 December, 2011. Around 20 farmers attended the training programme, which was designed to educate them on different aspects of ornamental fish farming, so that they can adopt this activity as a small scale entrepreneurship along with their main occupation for higher profits.
Dr. Asha Dhawan, Dean, College of Fisheries while inaugurating the training programme informed that the worldwide trade of ornamental fishes is estimated to be of US $ 9 billion. At present, 60 % of the total export trade of aquarium fishes is from Asian countries and Singapore is the world’s largest exporter in this field. The contribution of India in this trade is around Rs. 500 crores, which is negligible at only 0.008 %. The major share of the India’s export is from the captive collection from North-eastern States comprising 85 % of the total trade. In Punjab, the ornamental fish practices are at very initial stage and most of the fish stock comes from other States like West Bengal, Chennai and Mumbai. Thus to further enhance the ornamental fish trade of India, there is need to develop culture practices along with the capture sector.
The participants were imparted technical knowhow on different aspects of ornamental fish culture like identification of important cultivable varieties and their breeding processes, feed and feeding management, water quality management, pond management, disease management, aquarium fabrication, decoration and maintenance etc. According to Dr. Vaneet Inder Kaur, Assistant Scientist (Fisheries) and technical coordinator of the training programme, all the participants showed great enthusiasm in the training programme. Group discussion among the farmers as well as with the faculty members showed their real interest in adoption of this venture.
All the participants not only appreciated the efforts made by the organizers but also wished for conducting regular long term training courses in ornamental fisheries for more practical know how in the near future. Dr. Kulbir Singh Sandhu, the Director Extension Education, GADVASU was the chief guest of the concluding session. He appreciated the efforts of the faculty to organize the training programme and assured the participants to organize such types of trainings on regular basis. Feedback with suggestions from the participants was recorded for impact assessment and further improvement to make the trainings more farmers friendly.
