Projections for profitability assessment parameters under short-term, medium-term and long-term evaluation for three farming techniques of Kappaphycus alvarezii along eastern coast of India

Mass mortality of Kappaphycus alvarezii during Orbita, 2013-2014 has severely hampered the prospects of expansion of commercial farming of seaweeds in India. Nevertheless, farming and associated industry, is a highly potential option for supplementing income generation and for gainful employment to the marginalized fisher folks particularly woman in the coastal rural areas. The announcement of Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana by Ministry of Fisheries and Animal Husbandry and Dairying by putting the ambitious target of production of 10 Million metric tons of fresh biomass in next five years has generated renewed interest in this sector. We aimed at examining and compare, profitability assessment parameters under short, medium-and long-term evaluation namely, pay-back period (PP), break-even-point (BP), net present value (NPV) along with profit for three farming techniques namely, floating bamboo raft, monoline tubular net method, monoline net-bag method of Kappaphycus alvarezii as reported along Eastern coast of India. The raft method of cultivation has shown a minimum PP of 0.10, 0.21 and 0.22 years for respective short, medium and long-term, followed by monoline and net-bag method. BP was found to be efficient for monoline method with 391, 3521 and 7433 kg biomass for corresponding short, medium and long-term. In case of the NPV values all methods of cultivation reported by both the reports were observed to be favourable for commercialization. Irrespective of different timeline evaluation, the highest internal rates of return was observed for the raft (456% to 857%) followed by the monoline (304% to 567%) and net-bag method (168% to 309%). The model developed in this study for economic feasibility of different farming techniques showed that cultivation of K. alvarezii is profitable for all methods of farming. The study adequately explains the investors to fully realize the potential revenues from K. alvarezii farming along the Eastern coast of India thereby enhancing the prospects of proposed Blue Revolution.

Automated summary

The mass mortality of seaweed in India has hindered the expansion of commercial farming, but the government's target of increasing production has renewed interest in this sector. A study comparing different farming techniques showed that all methods of cultivation of Kappaphycus alvarezii are profitable, with the raft method being the most profitable.