The Government of India, assisted by the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, are engaged in the Intensification of Freshwater Fish Culture and Training Project (FI:DP/IND/75/031). The project is being carried out at the Freshwater Aquaculture Research and Training Centre (FARTC) of the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI) at Dhauli, Bhubaneswar, Orissa. The main purpose of the project is to strengthen the research, training and demonstration facilities, and to train the specialized staff, as well as to formulate and implement research and demonstration programmes.
As part of the operation of the project, FAO assigned Dr Nikola Fijan as Fish Health Protection and Disease Consultant from 30 August to 16 November 1982 with the following terms of reference:
to review the implementation of the fish health research programme formulated with the assistance of the consultant;
to examine the diagnostic work carried out at FARTC and the results of control measures adopted;
to advise on future research programmes in the field of fish health.
This report describes the work carried out by the consultant under the above terms of reference.
As in all types of biotechnologies, the success of any fish culture operation depends primarily on (a) percentage of survival, (b) growth rate and utilization of food, and (c) good reproductive capability in the case of spawners.
All these factors are either predominantly, or to a large extent, influenced by the health status of the reared fish population. The survival rate can also be significantly reduced by predators, especially in rearing of larvae, fry and fingerlings. Intensive ichthyotechnologies are at much greater risks from losses due to diseases caused both by bioagressors and by abiotic factors than by conventional ones. This, as well as the still high damages to fish culture caused by diseases, leads to an increased awareness in the world about the need to improve health protection in fish culture and to adapt it to various technologies and levels of intensification.
The results of work on composite fish culture at CIFRI have shown that intensive pond fish culture can secure very high yields in India. The project is involved in continuation of these efforts at the new research facilities in FARTC at Dhauli. Realizing the importance of fish diseases and their prevention, the project has included work on fish diseases as one of its main objectives.
The author of this report had already been assigned to the project as a consultant from October 1980 to January 1981. During the previous assignment he carried out basic theoretical and practical training of counterpart scientists, assisted in establishing laboratory facilities, in defining of short-term and long-term approaches to the laboratory diagnostic work and in formulating research programmes1.
