Pisciculture and ITS Impacts on The Livelihood of Rural Farmers of Ziro Valley of The Eastern Himalayan Region in Arunachal Pradesh, India

The farmers buy the fish nurseries and start culturing in the paddy field either before or after the transplantation of paddy in their rice field. There are many farmers having fish ponds which managed by themselves in every village. They use to harvest full grown fish for their own consumption as well as for market. Moreover, the fingerling and advance fingerling fish nurseries are also harvested from the private and government fish ponds for culturing at their own paddy field and for selling to other farmers for culturing in their paddy field. Thus, fish culture in paddy field helps the farmers for year round employment opportunities which yield additional income to the farmers as some of them engaged by themselves throughout the year in the production of fish nurseries and its management in the Apatani valley. This paper is based on the researcher field survey of 250 sample households from seven traditional villages as well as few secondary datas from the government fishery department to analyse the pisciculture activities and its positive impacts on the livelihood of rural farmers of Ziro valley of the Eastern Himalayan region in Arunachal Pradesh.