Marine Fish Marketing

India has a long sea coast where marine fishing is a big business. Several lakhs of people are engaged in capturing, processing and marketing fish and fish products. Nine states viz. Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal have sea coast where marine fishing is done.

Fishery plays an important role in India’s economy in augmenting food supply, in generating employment, raising nutritional levels and earning foreign exchange. The fish production has shown a steep rise during the last four decades. It has increased from 7.52 lakh tonnes in

1950-51 to 43.60 lakh tonnes in 1992-93 and further to about 56.02 lakh tonnes in 1998-99, the annual compound growth rate being 4.27%.

The structure of fish marketing has been changing considerably since the days of technological improvements is fishing industry. The rapid pace of technological changes in the production methods have posed challenges to the marketing system. The infrastructure developments have enabled to have fresh fish to more consumers and new markets. The infrastructures include good roads, ordinary truck transport, transport by insulated vans, supply of ice, cold storage at landing port markets and consuming markets, processing units, etc. However, they are quite inadequate as against the requirements and at some places they are lacking.

Marine fishing is carried out in the sea coast while the consumer are spread over not only in towns and cities along the sea coast but also in the inland towns and cities quite far away. This needs quick transport, efficient marketing agency, modern transport equipment, etc. The problem of marketing fish is compounded due to highly perishable nature of fish. This needs storage including cold storage facilities both at landing centres and consuming centres. Such facilities are developed in some states and at important landing port markets. But by and large these facilities are quite inadequate. The fishermen in general are unorganised and some of them still carry out fishing operation by country or traditional boats and hence their catch is small, which poses marketing problems.

Marketing of fish involves following aspects.

1. Channels of marketing

2. Cost of marketing, market margins and price spread

3. Price variation

4. Transport, storage etc.

Channels:

Marketing channels are the trade channels or the distribution paths through which the fish is transferred from the point of landing till it reaches the consumers. The channels of distribution and other aspects of fish marketing vary widely from state to state.

Orissa Coast

Six channels were identified on Orissa coast.

I Fisherman -- Consumers

II Fisherman – Retailer -- Consumer

III Fisherman – Wholesaler – Retailer -- Consumer

IV Fisherman – Auctioneer – Wholesaler – Retailer – Consumer

V Fisherman – Auctioneer – Wholesaler – Retailer – Vendor – Consumer

VI Fisherman – Auctioneer – Commission agent

(Purchase) – Wholesaler – Comm.agent

(sales) – Retailer – Consumer

There is no intermediary in Channel I but in subsequent channels middlemen increased from one to five. Existence of more number intermediaries indicated unorganised nature of the marketing system which reduces the share of fishermen in consumer’s price. Number of middlemen have negative contribution to fishermen’s net share. Consequently marketing margins have contribution ranging from 48% to 79% in discriminating fishermen’s net share. Marketing costs have no much discriminative effect. Similarly, distance between landing point and consumers place has no much discriminating effect as longer distance markets create wider market and helps to earn higher prices.

In Orissa marine fish prices fluctuate very widely. The wholesale prices of marine fish are less than the average during January to June and high in September to December. Fishermen’s net share, consumer’s price and price spread for different varieties of fish are given below:

Thus the fisherman’s net share varies from 53.3 per cent to 69.4 per cent in different varieties of fish. The consumer’s price was the highest (Rs. 34.75 per kg) for Illisha variety and the lowest (Rs. 12.50 per kg) for Sila variety.

Karnataka Coast:

In Karnataka coast, Mangalore is the main fishing and marketing centre. Among the different species landed and distributed in the domestic market are mackerel and oil sardine which account for 70% of the total marine fish production. Following marketing channels are identified

Channel I (outside the state)

Fisherman – Auctioneer –cum-commission agent

--Port fish merchant – wholesaler (Kerala)

--Commission agent – Retailer – Small scale distributors – consumer

Channel II (In the region)

Fisherman – Auctioneer – Wholesaler – Commission agent – Retailer – Vendor –

Consumer

Channel III (Local market)

Fisherman – Auctioneer – Local wholesaler – Retailer – Consumer

Price spread of mackerel and sardine species is given below:

(Figure in the parentheses are percentages)

This showed that the net share of fisherman in the consumer’s price was very low between 25% and 27% and major share was taken away as margins by the intermediate agencies. Even market cost was not much (about Rs. 2 to 3 per kg). This indicated that the marketing system is much less efficient.

Prices of marine fish fluctuate very widely during the fishing season. Prices are related to quantity of catch or fish landing at the port. There are two distinct seasons of fishing viz. Peak or flush season from September to December and lean season from January to May. There is no fishing (fishing is banned) from 16^th June to 15^th August which is breeding season of fishes. Fish catch is more in peak season and hence prices are generally low in this period, while catch declines from January onwards when prices start rising. Thus there is negative correlationship between quantity of landing and the prices. Month wise quantity of landing and prices are given below:

Tamil Nadu Coast:

Tamil Nadu has long coastal belt of 1000 km. Fish varieties viz. Seer, Caranx and Lesser Sardine formed the major share to the extent of 85%. The fish is marked through three distinct channels.

Channel I

(30 km from landing centre) Fisherman – commission agent – Retailer – Consumer

Channel II

(60 km from landing centre and within the state)

Fisherman – Commission agent – Primary wholesaler – Secondary wholesaler – Retailer – Consumer

Channel III

(180 km from landing centre and outside the state)

Fisherman – Commission agent – Assembler – Wholesaler – Retailer –Consumer

The estimation of price spread for the three varieties for each channel indicated that fishermen received 56.40% of consumer’s price. In Channel II, fishermen obtained less than 50% of consumer’s rupee. Policy recommendations to improve fishermen’s share are:

1. Provision of institutional credit to mechanise fishing fleet,

2. Organisation of fishermen through co-operatives or associations and

3. Provision of cold storage facilities at landing centres.