Before the dawn in the early monsoon season, scores of youths are sighted in the neck-deep waters at the Manginapudi beach and other strategic coastal locations, making themselves busy in collecting the highly commercial fish species seed of Asian seabass with the handheld net.
The seed collectors flock the beach to reap the benefit from the just ended annual marine fish breeding season, during which fishing activity would completely be banned in the Bay of Bengal. The availability of the Asian Seabass (Lates Calcarifer) seed is abundant in quantity at the beach area. “Each seed fetches ₹1.5 and the cost likely to go up to ₹5 by August when the catch is dwindling. A two-hour labour a day guarantees the catch of at least 1,000 seed for a lucky collector,” Seri Nagaraju told The Hindu .
Like many, Mr. Nagaraju, Mr. Rambabu and other seed collectors belonging to Kanuru village would eke out their livelihood in the next two months by collecting the Asian seabass seed near the beach. The seed tends to swim into the lagoon in the morning. “The collection of the seed requires patience but a remunerative price is guaranteed in the wake of a huge scarcity in the market,” said Mr. Rambabu.
The Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture in Vijayawada mostly run without the stock of the Asian seabass, which is being cultivated in above 2,000 acres in Krishna district alone.
Many progressive farmers procure the seed from the seed collectors and sell it to the farmers for cultivation after it attains a certain growth.
“The project of setting up the Asian seabass hatchery at Pandurangapuram in Guntur district is likely to take off soon to meet the demand for the seed in the State,” Fisheries Department Joint Director Yakub Basha told The Hindu .
