Economics of ornamental fish farming industry in Madurai District, Tamil Nadu

Abstract

India has enormous potential for the development of ornamental fish business. Although the country has conducive environmental conditions for breeding and culture of ornamental fishes, its share in export of ornamental fishes is less than 1%. The present study was undertaken to address the constraints prevailing in ornamental fish farming. Study was carried out among 44 ornamental fish farms in Madurai District, Tamil Nadu by adopting random sampling technique. The selected farms were classified into small (<0.5 ha) and medium farms (0.5-2 ha) and the data were collected by personally interviewing the fish farmers. The study attempted to analyse the socio-economic characteristics of respondents, existing supply chain, constraints involved in ornamental fish farming, annual revenue loss due to major constraints, treatment cost and expected profit margin. Various constraints were classified as production, marketing and others and were ranked using Garrett ranking technique. Tabular and percentage analyses were used to estimate the cost of treatment, revenue loss and expected profit margin. Four types of marketing channels were observed in the study area. Disease outbreak was found to be the major constraint faced by the farmers and hence, the revenue loss was estimated for the same. The annual revenue loss was found to be higher for the small ornamental units when compared to medium farms, which showed higher profit margin than small ornamental fish farms.