Kerala’s landings down by 15%

Kerala suffered a drop of 15.4% in marine fish landings with the total landings of 5.44 lakh tonnes compared 6.42 lakh tonnes in 2018-19.

There was a sharp decline in oil sardine and Indian mackerel catch. While oil sardine catch dropped to a meagre 44,320 tonnes, the lowest catch in two decades, Indian mackerel (40,554 tonnes) experienced a decline of 50% compared to the previous year. In 2012, the catch of oil sardine in Kerala was 3.9 lakh tonnes.

Since then, there was a substantial decrease in the catch every year, but it moved up in 2017. Oil sardine landings again continued to decline for the past two years due tochanges in ocean environment.