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Fisherwomen take up seaweed cultivation

— Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Beneficiaries tending to their crop of a variety of ‘Red Algae’, which has a commercial potential, at Gokharakuda village in Ganjam district on Wednesday.

GOKHAKUDA (GANJAM DIST): A group of women of this area of Orissa coast have joined hands with their counterparts in Tamil Nadu on their own to grow a commercially viable sea weed at the backwaters near their villages on an experimental basis.

These women are from the marine fishermen community. According to B.Saraswati of Gokharkuda village they were in search of an alternative livelihood and have faith that their experimentation in growing these sea weed may provide some alternative income to them.

They have started growing a red algae ‘Kappaphycus alverizii’ on an experimental basis at three back waters on the Ganjam coast near

Gokharkuda, Purunabandha and Haripur. The experiment has failed near Haripur. But the algae growth is too fast at the other two places, said M.Adyamma a member of the women’s group involved in it.

Although mariculture of this exotic weed was successfully introduced in the Indian coastal belt especially on the Tamil Nadu coast around a decade ago, yet it is being taken up for the first time on the Orissa coast only due to interest of these women groups. This marine seaweed produces ‘kappa carrageenan’, which has large scale demand in food, pharmaceutical and aquaculture related industries world over. Food grade colour pigment produced from it is used in jellies, ice cream, sauce, ham, sausage and cola drinks. It is also used by the cosmetic industry in large scale.

Mangaraj Panda of ‘United Artistes’, the organisation that helped these women to take up this endeavour said as there is no direct market for this marine weed they have decided to market their produce through community trading relationships.

The women producing it here would hand over their produce to their counterparts in Tamil Nadu for marketing.

A few growers of this weed in Tamil Nadu had come over to Orissa to teach the women groups the practical tips of this mariculture. Seeing the interest of these fisher women Sailabala Padhi, a botany professor of Berhampur university who has expertise in the field of algae has extended her help to provide scientific and technical support. The growth of these sea weeds is quite fast in the two places where they survived. It is anticipated that there would be ample amount of weed to harvest within next two months.

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