Inauguration of Seed distribution of Kappaphyucs seaweed to cultivators under PMMSY project

Kappaphycus alvarezii commercial farming along Tamil Nadu coast is very common practice that caters the livelihood option for coastal community.  The coastal women are the factual choice for this practice because of their time management for both homemaking and a partial time allocation for farming work in the coast. The earning of fisherwomen from farming made self-sustain for their livelihood. However the two decades of this activity was curtailed due to seed  scarcity to pursue the cultivation. This created the hindrance for entire farming activity and further down the revenue of cultivators. To resolve the issue of seed shortage, Ministry of Fisheries and animal husbandry & Dairying, Govt of India funded the project under PMMSY exclusively to produce the seed plant of Kappaphycus seaweed and distribute to seaweed cultivators. Growth of Kappaphycus was   geared up from November 2021 and reached the biomass production of 215 tons fresh during the month of February-2022. The sizeable quantity of seed was proposed to distribute to the beneficiaries identified by the Department of fisheries and fishermen welfare, Tamil Nadu state. Fisheries Department, Ramanathapuram district has identified the   beneficiaries cultivating seaweed. An inaugural function for seed distribution was organized on 23^rd April-22 in the presence of District collector Ramanathapuram, District. Seed Kappaphycus was distributed to the selected beneficiaries by the district collector Shri. Sankar Lal Kumavat IAS at PV Pattinum, near Thondi. The remaining seed plant brought in six vehicle (Nearly 12 tons fresh) were dispatched directly to cultivation sites such as Therthandam, Dhamothrapattinum Mandampam. District collector also visited the seed farm at PV. Pattinum and interacted with the cultivators. He was interested to further strengthens the activity and impart skill development on seaweed farming to the women group in order to potentially use the coastal district of Ramanathapuram coast using the district fund.