Visakhapatnam :

Chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s new proposal to set up an integrated botanical garden (IBG) in Araku Valley in the district has drawn good response. Experts on Ayurveda medicine and pharmaceutical sectors lauded the state government’s initiative and expressed confidence that the IBG would generate good revenue and employment opportunities.

Chandrababu Naidu, during his two-day visit recently, directed Visakhapatnam collector N Yuvaraj to study and plan to set up the IBG at Araku in association with the Ayurvedic Board. There are a large number of medicinal plants, shrubs, barks, roots and creepers in and around North Andhra region, especially in the agency and forest pockets.

Some of the Ayurveda medicine manufacturing companies pay the tribals and deploy their staff to collect some rare medicinal plants and leaves from the agency areas. The Andhra University  pharmaceutical department, on its own, had conducted a study on the medicinal plants and their history in North Andhra region, and found that a large number of tribals still use Ayurvedic medicines, prepared by themselves, for curing several diseases.

“There are a huge number of medicinal plants in the region. There are plants which have commercial value. For example there is ‘Bixa Orrellana’ from which a powder ‘Bixin’ compound is prepared. The compound is used in the textile industry for colour combinations. The chief minister’s proposal is a very good idea,” said S Ganapathy, former professor of Andhra University and current principal of GITAM Institute of Pharmacy.

Meanwhile, during the past one decade, the usage of Ayurvedic medicines has increased. Ayurvedic medical shops have also registered good sales.

“Ayurveda is seeing a rise not only in health-related medicines, but also in beauty parlour products, dental care and hair fall etc., Special medicines for alcoholic addiction are also manufactured from several medicinal plants and herbs. The Araku and Paderu dense forest areas are the best places to set up an integrated botanical garden. The IBG should be set up with an aim to promote academic research and commercial sales of the products,” K Yamuna, an Ayurvedic doctor and owner of an Ayurvedic medicine shop, opined.

An integrated medicinal plant is a welcome move by the government and there is good scope for developing the existing botanical garden at Araku as the nearby areas are suitable for cultivation of medicinal plants, Prof Ganapathy said.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indina Express / Home> States> Andhra Pradesh / by VKL Gayatri / August 12th, 2014

Under the ST sub-plan, the CIBA takes up a pilot project to provide technology support to tribal families in Sorlagondi

A team of scientists of the Central Institute of Brakishwater Aquaculture (CIBA), Chennai, on Saturday introduced the ‘crab fattening technology’ through floating cages to the Yanadi tribal families to help the latter grow Mangrove Crab (Sylla serrata) in Sorlagondi Reserve Forest area in Krishna District.

As a part of the ST Sub-Plan, the CIBA has taken up a pilot project to provide the technology support to the selected ten Yanadi tribal families in Sorlagondi village. The project will be expand it to the other eligible beneficiaries in the State, later. As a part of the programme, scientists– K. Ambasankar, J. Syam Dayal, C.P. Balasubramanyam and M. Kailasan–demonstrated the use of cages to Yanadi tribal families who are engaged in hunting of the crab in the estuary. The scientists also provided them 1,000 seed of Asian Seabass that would be cultivated in the ponds in the tribal area.

“Crab fattening technology helps the hunters raise young and soft crabs until they grow to a certain hardness at which it would fetch remunerative price in the market. However, barely two to three weeks are required for a soft crab to become hard one,” Mr. Bala Subrahmanyam told The Hindu.

According to experts, crab is being sold at Rs. 1,200 a kg in the India’s biggest crab market Chindradripet in Chennai. From Chennai, it is being exported to South East Asian countries. “The CIBA aims at promising better livelihood option to tribal families by moulding them into entrepreneurs,” said the scientists.

New technology

Yanadi tribal families of Sorlagondi Reserve Forest hunt mangrove crab in estuary, backwaters and brackish water, largely in mangrove forests. They completely rely on local market in Nagayalanka. The CIBA scientists also began a detailed study on the catch of the crab in a bid to estimate its population roughly before introducing next stages of technology in crab fattening.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by T. Appala Naidu / Sorlagondi (Krishna) – July 21st, 2014

Visakhapatnam :

At a time when fish stocks are declining globally due to various factors like climatic change and pollution, cage farming of fish on sea, an aquaculture technique, has thrown up an encouraging alternative that yields 10 times the fish catch as compared to fish reared in ponds or wild harvest in the sea.

This technique has also been taken up to great success in Vizag and other coastal districts of AP on an experimental basis by scientists of the Visakhapatnam Regional Centre of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI).

In Krishna district (Nagailanka) and Narsapuram (West Godavari), cage farming has been taken up in collaboration with fishermen, while in Vizag the cages in the sea along RK Beach are controlled by the CMFRI. There are six cages in Krishna, 10 in West Godavari and eight in Vizag district of AP. Plans are afoot to double the number of cages in Vizag soon given the good prospects, said CMFRI scientists.

Though open sea cage culture technology is a relatively recent activity in India, it is prevalent in other Asian countries. While lobster, Asian seabass, mullets, Cobia and Pearl Spot have been successfully harvested by CMFRI in various coastal waters in India, at present the Vizag centre of CMFRI is maintaining brood stocks of Orange Spotted Grouper, Indian Pompano, Snappers and Golden Trevally in cages that have all shown good growth and maturation, said scientists.

Under this procedure, fish rearing is done in an enclosed area in a natural aquatic environment where the water continuously flows and debris doesn’t accumulate, which is why there is no pollution or ammonia deposition as in the case of stagnant and low density water ponds. The young ones of fish and other aquatic species are kept, fed and grown to marketable size in these cages, which are of six metre diameter and made of high density polyethylene.

“Cage farming is in an infancy stage now, but the prospects for commercial exploitation are so good that we are planning to double the number of cages soon as well as expand to other neighbouring areas. At the end of the culture period, which ranges from six to eight months, three to five tonnes of fish are produced just from one cage,” said Subhadeep Ghosh, senior scientist and scientist-in-charge at CMFRI.

The biggest advantage of cage farming, according to Prof K Sujatha, chairperson, board of studies, department of marine living resources at AU, is that despite being a fish culture technique there is no need to change the waters as sea water continuously flows through the cages, there is some natural food easily available for the fish to feed on and there’s no need to put up any time or space-consuming infrastructure except the cages.

However, she pointed out that not all areas are suitable for cage farming. “There needs to be optimum depth of at least 10 metres from the shore, the sea should be more or less calm without high waves and currents where the cages are located. The salinity, pH, ammonia, nitrate should be all within permissible limits,” she explained.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Visakhapatnam / TNN / July 17th, 2014