With Asia’s largest fisheries farm in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district emerging given that producer that is best of rainbow trout on the planet, private farms are taking to trout rearing and finding it commercially viable
The weekend getaway of Kokernag, 22km from Anantnag, is home to Asia’s largest fisheries farm this is certainly emerging whilst the producer that is best of rainbow trout in the world.
Spread over 20 hectares, the farm was set up 36 years back with support from the European Economic Committee. It started with a hatchery that is single has now been upgraded to 3 hatcheries who supply scores of eyed ova and seeds to beneficiaries, including private fish farmers.
Trout farming within the private sector was introduced by the government in ’09 and contains been a success. At the moment, there are many than 540 private farms rearing trout and earning their livelihood in Kokernag.
Just the right conditions
The principle trout farming project officer at Kokernag, Mohammad Muzaffar Bazaz, says Kashmir has 2 kinds of fisheries, warm and cool water. “For trout culture, the temperature should not exceed 20 degrees Celsius. Brown trouts come in abundance within the upper reaches,” he says.
Being the very first fisheries postgraduate (MFSc) of Kashmir, Bazaz has a liking that is special this farm and spends his entire trip to the hatcheries, raceways and streams to help keep a watch from the trouts.
“We have our personal brooders to get eggs and milt that is white them. We rear rainbow trout for commercial purposes only as it is carried out in the remainder world,” he says, showing the brooders swimming when you look at the uncontaminated water of this gushing stream.
Explaining the hatching process, he says, the eggs from females and milt that is white male brooders are harvested by stripping their bellies. “The eggs are fertilised in hatcheries by keeping them in trays which are put under running water. It usually takes a to hatch these eggs into fry, which are put on high protein feed month. The fish are shifted from hatcheries to outside additionally the recipe of feed is changed till it attains table size weight suitable for commercial farming,” Bazaz says.
A great amount of potential
Kashmir leads trout production in India with over 500 tonnes every year. “This is entirely consumed locally so there is potential and much more private players are moving towards rearing trout,” https://www.besthookupwebsites.org/cupid-review/ he says.
A year ago, the farm earned Rs 1.83 crore out of which it sold seed for Rs 40 lakh to farmers that are private. “The breeding coincides with winter and as a result of heavy silting and changing water parameters, the farm produces 40 lakh green ova out which it gets 15 lakh fry,” he says.
“i’ve been rearing trout in my farm for two years. After the fish attain table size, I get customers here at my farm. The trout is commercially viable,” says Ajaz Ahmad, the master of a private farm in South Kashmir.
Hard work and expertise
Kashmir can also be known as the anglers’ paradise which is why tourists, particularly foreigners, head when it comes to water that is high-altitude. “Usually, brown trout is found in high-altitude lakes and streams as it feeds on animal prey species unlike rainbow trout. It’s needs a special expertise to catch trout,” says Manzoor Bhat, an angler from Tangmarg.
Syed Manzoor, a senior supervisor at the Kokernag farm, says the breeding season is from October to February when seed is collected from the fish.
“We know which fish is ready for stripping. To help keep the hatcheries neat and harvesting the eggs is a process that is hectic needs expertise for which we now have trained staff. We must regularly feed the fry after which the fish at different stages besides cleaning the raceways. All things are done manually. We even produce the feed here,” he says.
How the journey began
In Kashmir, the trout that is first, comprising 10,000 eggs, came from the United Kingdom in 1899. The entire batch perished. The batch that is second from Scotland a year later, out of which 1,000 fry were used in Panzagam Dachigam (Harwan) and the rest reared in the premises of an exclusive carpet factory owner in Baghi, Dilawar Khan, in the middle of the town.