NaCSA

National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture- NaCSA
MPEDA, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India
Plot No.8, SBI Officers’ Colony, Rajendra Nagar,
Kakinada – 533 003, Andhra Pradesh
  http://www.nacsampeda.org/
  nacsa@mpeda.gov.in

BACKGROUND

National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture is an outreach organization of MPEDA to provide technical support to the primary aquaculture societies and build capacity among small farmers to produce quality shrimps in a sustainable manner. NACSA is registered as a society under the Society Registration Act of Andhra Pradesh. Chairman MPEDA is the Ex Officio President and NaCSA is headed by a Chief Executive Officer. This society is guided and managed by a Governing Counsel and its Head quarters are at Kakinada.

Coastal aquaculture in India is mainly carried out by small and marginal farmers, located in the remote villages of maritime States. More than 90% of the farmers belong to small scale or marginal category with holdings of less than 2.00 ha per individual. They are largely unorganized and scattered in various remote coastal villages of the country. The farmers mostly adopt traditional methods for operating their farms and do not have access to technological innovations and scientific applications. To improve access of farmers to sustainable and ecofriendly farming methods and its contribution to national economy, effective extension work is essential and prerequisite from the concerned agencies. Although several Central and State agencies are involved and extending technical assistance through their extension network, it has not been possible to reach a major chunk of these farmers due to their sheer numbers and remote locations.To address this MPEDA had started an extension arm National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture (NaCSA) through Govt. of India, New trends are emerging in production and marketing such as certification, traceability, eco-labeling, etc. In this background, the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) has felt the need to guarantee the quality of seafood produced for domestic and export market and therefore had to evolve a new mechanism for capacity building in shrimp health and quality management at the grassroots level by organizing small scale farmers into Aqua Societies, and networking them with a centralized agency for adopting Better Management Practices (BMP).

MAIN OBJECTIVES OF NACSA

• Promote science-based management to improve aquaculture sustainability through participatory approach.
• Empower and build capacity of small scale aquaculture farmers.
• Facilitate improved service provision to small scale aquaculture farmers.
• Connect farmers to markets to receive better prices for good quality products.
• Facilitate interaction among stakeholders.
• Promoting better management practices to improve aquaculture productivity and profits.

SOCIETY UPDATE

NaCSA has organized 834 small farmer societies with membership of 25 to 50 registered farmers in each society in six coastal states of India. There are 643 societies in the state of Andhra Pradesh alone as this is being the key state which produces almost 60% of the farmed prawn in India. There are about 18399 registered farmers involved in societies with an culture area of 16702 hectares.

ANTIBIOTIC /BMP AWARENESS PROGRAMMES

NaCSA as extension body actively involved in creating awareness programs on ban usage of Antibiotics and BMP’s in shrimp culture. around 1266 awareness programs were conducted to society farmers in different parts of India for 2013-2014, details as follows