As China slashes prices, Diu fishermen find themselves in troubled waters

The sun is about to set. All the ships are docked. The day is about to end but the Diu dockyard is abuzz. Workers unload containers of fishes. Ice crushing machines are hard at work to keep the day’s catch fresh. And taking stock of the catch at his godown is Laksham Jiva Solanki, a stocky 60-year-old man in crisp, spotless white shirt.

Sitting on a plastic chair, Solanki watches as fishes are sorted by sizes and varieties, weighed, loaded into containers, along with layers of crushed ice, and being readied to be shipped. But the bustling waterfront belies the lethargy in trade. “Since August last year, our catch has been good. But our earnings have crashed,” says Solanki.

Most of his catch are exported to China. And the procurement prices offered by the Chinese have crashed. For example, prices of ribbon fish – an important export for Solanki – has crashed from Rs 100-120 a kg last season to Rs 50-60. “We are under water. We won’t even recover our costs,” asserts Solanki. He owns six ships and employs 40-plus workers. But he may have to let a few workers go if things don’t improve.

Doklam Echoes
The troubles for the fishermen began in August, when India and China agreed to end their Doklam face-off and pull back troops. Temperature in the cold Himalayan Plateau had shot up last summer when the two Asian giants sparred over a tri-boundary area (the third country being Bhutan).

“Since August last year, we have been seeing a sharp dip in the prices of fish that Chinese importers offer our fishermen,” says Sukar Anjani, assistant superintendent of fisheries, Diu.



Tourism and fish exports are the two big revenue earners for the district in the Union territory of Daman and Diu. In 2016-17, the turnover of Diu’s fishing industry stood at Rs 286 crore. Of the 55,000-odd people in the island district, 7,200 are active fishermen and over 20,000 households are dependent on the fishing industry.

While 90% of Diu’s fishes are exported, about 10% head to cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Of the heads to China. The rest to Vietnam, the UAE and parts of Europe. Some of the important fish varieties that are exported are ribbon fish, cat fish, perches and red snapper.

“Our exports to China eventually land in Europe. But because we do not have a good fish processing facility, our fishes are bought by Chinese traders, processed in China to meet the stiff European Union norms and then exported to Europe,” says Anjani.



The sharp cut in price offers for fish by Chinese traders is being seen as a retaliatory tactic deployed by China to send India a message.

The obvious question is why is India not directly exporting fishes to the EU? There are two reasons.

One, India does not have high-quality processing facilities fulfilling’s EU requirements. Two, fishermen in India, relatively smaller in scale and constrained on resources, are reluctant to export directly.

"Export of whole fish is relatively hassle free. Processing ready-toserve fish for the EU market is complicated. Fishermen fear rejection of shipments by the EU," says Anjani. Whole fishes are processed in high-tech facilities in China where it is cleaned and then cut and packed in ready-to-serve format before being shipped. "After processing, about 30% of the whole fish gets removed, thus bringing down the yield for fishermen. This also puts them off," he says.

The Blue Revolution
But India -the world's second largest producer of fishes, after China, which exported seafood worth Rs 38,000 crore in 2016-17 - is waking up to the challenge. Last year, the government rolled out a policy road map to develop the fishing and marine industry. As part of the Rs 3,000 crore Blue Revolution plan, it wants to nurture a sustainable ecosystem with thrust on marine production, inland aquaculture and mariculture.


This will help boost fishermen's income, the sector's productivity and also exports.

On the back of the government's Blue Revolution policy, the Diu administration is working hard to boost income of fishermen. Nudging fishermen to form a cooperative, it is partnering them to build a storage-cum-processing facility for fishes. "It has been approved and the project should come up in 2018-19, says Anjani.




Many other initiatives are afoot, as India's marine fishing potential is relatively untapped. Now, shipowners are being given up to 40% subsidy to upgrade their vessels and make these worthy of deep-sea fishing. These ships will be able to stay in deep seas for 25-30 days, instead of just 15-17 days. Applications for five deep-sea vessels have already been processed. Subsidy for cage culture, too, is being extended so that fish larvae can be released in a controlled environment to boost production.

"Our pilot projects have shown good results and are now being scaled up. We have got 25 applications already," says Anjani. A pilot for cultivation of seaweed, which has high medicinal value and demand, is underway and will be rolled out soon.

Fishermen like Solanki are desperate for help. The government must show the urgency the situation demands to push forth some of these projects.