Adoption of modern digital technologies can boost fisheries sector

New digital technologies, including IoT, robotics, Big Data and sensors, can help the fisheries sector reach new heights in today’s digital world. The same has been acknowledged by the Centre for Strategy and Leadership (CSL) in its whitepaper – IoT in the fisheries sector in India.

It highlights the importance of new technologies for India to realize optimal green growth in the fisheries sector, and how technologies like IoT optimize management of scarce resources and increase productivity of Indian fisheries industry as a whole.

The white paper pointed out that the fisheries sector provides livelihood to approximately 160 lakh people at the primary level and almost double that number along its entire value chain. India is the second largest fish producer in the world, contributing 5.43% to world fish production, while fisheries is one of the most committed agricultural and cooperative sectors in the country.”

Vikas Sharma, Director and Chief Executive, Centre for Strategy and Leadership, said India, which has 65% of its population under the age of 35 years, makes it the world’s most enviable workforce pool. “As per studies, the IoT sector will boom to grow to a more than $20 billion market by 2022. We believe India’s fisheries sector currently in the middle of a transformation would derive great benefits by the adoption of modern technologies such as IoT when compared to other areas.

Sharma said bring IoT to the centre of the sector’s growth model should be prioritized. “This will also show the way to create an inclusive strategy of public and private partnerships with an eye on creating millions of job opportunities in the fisheries and IoT-led sectors along with auxiliary industries.”

Parthsarathi Trivedi, co-founder and CEO of Skylo, said digitalization and connectivity are key to achieving the PM’s goal of doubling fisheries production under the Blue Revolution. “Technology will transform the fishery sector in three main ways – safety, productivity and sustainability. At the heart of this transformation is access to data and cloud-based analystics for unconnected fishing vessels and aquafarms, there is immediate need to prioritize the adoption of modern digital technologies in the sector,” he said.

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The paper stated that the future of fisheries management depends on technological innovation. It said improvements in digital technologies now allow innovative monitoring tools to manage fish stocks better at every phase of the value chain. However, technology adoption in such situations is still limited primarily due to high cost. As such, it presents challenges for fishery management authorities to adopt the best in data-sharing and communications systems.