Impact of covid-19 pandemic on Indian seaweed farming - A case study

Abstract

Seaweed farming forms a major livelihood activity of the fisherfolk community of the Ramanathapuram district of India, where seaweed farming is done on a commercial scale. Data were collected from all the stakeholders involved in seaweed farming through telephonic survey, following snowball sampling method, to identify the impact of the pandemic and the related lockdown on seaweed farmers. The study found that COVID-19 had severely affected the farming activities, and the supply chain was also disrupted. Results revealed that 38.88 per cent of farmers were not harvested the seaweed on time, leading to massive quantity of seaweed decay and fish grazing which resulted in significant economic loss to farmers. Further, both the COVID-19 and a natural disaster (Amphan cyclone) have shrunk the seaweed production by about 75 per cent in the study area. The frequency of traders visiting to the farming site also reduced owing to fear of getting infection, restriction for travel and social distancing. At present, availability of seedlings has been identified as a major challenge faced to resume the seaweed farming and further availability of quality seed also raised as an issue by the farmers. Women are actively involved in seaweed farming; working hours has been drastically diminished into 2 - 3 h from the average of 8 h day. Seaweed farming dependant household faced major economic challenges. The state fisheries department provided ration and the financial assistance of ₹2,000 to each family. Further it was also noticed that more than 250 fisher women were trained by the state officials about seaweed culture and the trainings will be continued after the COVID-19.