Methodologies for Livelihood Support through Fish Farming at High Altitudes of Arunachal Pradesh

Aquaculture in the hilly regime of eastern part of Himalayas could not make much headway due to lack of awareness, perspective, technical skills and low risk-taking capacity of the farmers. Simple attention to basic requirements in fish farming may spell a big difference in raising the production level by many folds, for which easier technologies are readily available. For proper land utilization, aquaculture was supported with free of cost critical inputs from various agencies for economic well being of the community. An attempt was, thus made here to evaluate the effect of awareness generation, skill dissemination and sustained level of follow up action over extended period, in transforming the aquaculture scenario of Chug village, Dirang Block of West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. Study revealed that 500 farmers developed skill from fisheries training programmes, on-farm trials and Frontline Demonstrations; more than 1000 farmers gained knowledge from kisan gosthies and exhibitions; 1000 fish farmers were distributed fish seeds and other critical inputs. 30 fish pond holders of Chug village adopted the technology on scientific lines with recommended dietary protein level for raising the fish production from a negligible quantity to a level of 0.4–0.6 kg/m² unit area.