Blue Revolution

The Background and importance of Blue Revolution
One important source of food that has an increasing demand is from the world's seas. On average, people get about 20% of their animal protein from seafood. In Asia, about 1 billion people depend on fish and other seafood as their main source of protein in their diet. However, since the 1970s, the amount of fish caught has been falling as the world's oceans suffer from a decline in fish populations due to overfishing and pollution. The Blue Revolution was a social and technological movement that started in the 1970s. Its aim was to protect marine life as to ensure sufficient seafood, especially fish, for present and future generations. The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other international aid agencies was rensponsible for superheading this movement.
How is it carried out?

Blue Revolution has encouraged fish farming where farmers rear fish in tanks, ponds, or enclosed areas under special conditions that promote growth, instead of catching them from the sea. (Think of it like growing plants in a greenhouse.) Therefore, factors such as breeding conditions, water quality, animal behaviour, health and nutritional details have to be well taken care of and worken out in detail. Medicine and vaccines are also used to improve health and nutrition of the fishes. By 1985, international Organisations were investing about S$400million a year on fish farming projects. For example, the FAO helped to start the Central Institude of Freshwater Aquaculture in India. By 1988, the institude had over 500 ponds, laboratories, training facilities and hatcheries. They also conduct research on various species such as crap, catfish and prawns. Through research, scientists have developed ways to increase the fertility of fish, to improve their growth rate and increase their resistance to disease. For example, an improved breed of tilapia has been developed to grow much faster than the normal breed. Thus, productivity will increase.

Benefits of Blue Revolution (:

Social benefits-

• As a result of Blue Revolution, there has been a significant increase in the amount of fish available. Currently, fish farmers produced nearly 12% of the annual world harvest of fish (approx 100 million tonnes). This has certainly helped to ensure a stable supply of fish. Therefore, prices of fish has fallen.
• Food supply is stable and food security is ensured, thus reducing food shortage. The fell of prices was especially beneficial to people who depends on fish as their source of protein, especially those in LDCs who could not afford it earlier on.
  

Econmic benefit for the country-

• The compelling attraction of intensive commercial aquaculture is that it generates export revenue can improve a country's overall economy and revenue earned can be used to widen economy of a LDC and develop the country.

Disadvantages of Blue Revolution

Environmental and Health impacts:

• The most important effects are ecological, and are associated with the conversion of natural ecosystems into intensively managed aquacultural ecosystems. For example, the conversion of tropical mangrove forest into aquacultural facilities for the raising of shrimps or prawns results in an extensive loss of natural habitat. This conversion has important consequences for native species, and it may damage offshore ecosystems through increased rates of siltation and pollution.
• Increase in the commercial fish harvest will come at the expense of both the wild fish stocks and the environment. Major disease and pollution problems are already emerging in Japan. Fish waste and uneaten fish food have accumulated on the sea bottom.

Health risk:

• In some countries, the waste stifles the growth of aquatic organisms and causes water quality to deteriorate. Intensive coastal fish farming has also been linked to 'red tides' - an explosive growth of toxic algae that can kill fish and fatally poison people who eat contaminated seafood.

A case study on Shrimp farming - an integral part of the Blue Revolution:

• Not long ago, shrimp is considered a rare and expensive delicacy.
• Thanks to soaring demand from the US, Japan, and Western Europe, shrimps are now raised on an industrial scale in tropical countries.
• The dramatic growth in the consumption of shrimp is due to its increasing affordability.
• The sharp decline in the price of shrimp over the last few decades has been driven by increased production.
• It is propelled by the lure of exporting shrimp to earn foreign exchange, and stiff competition among the producers along the tropical coasts of Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Environmental and Social Concerns Surrounding Industrial Shrimp Farming
(demerits of shrimp farming)

• The explosive growth of the aquaculture industry has generated mounting criticism over its social, economic, and environmental consequences, and has provoked the establishment of hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the local, national, and international levels.
• Industrial shrimp farming has caused social dislocation, ecological change, and environmental destruction that is arguably worse than from many earlier Green Revolution technologies.
• Some of the most serious environmental problems include the destruction of coastal wetlands, water pollution, disruption of hydrological systems, introduction of exotic species, and depletion and salinization of aquifers.
• Due to pollution, there is a decline of wild shrimp fisheries.
• One of the most critical social problems identified by locals as part of the expansion of the Blue Revolution is the loss of communal resources - including mangrove areas, estuaries, and fishing grounds - that local people depend on for both subsistence and commercial economic activities.

• Commercial shrimp farming has displaced local communities, exacerbated conflicts and provoked violence involving property and tenant rights.
• The major questions to ask include:
1. do the touted benefits of shrimp farming outweigh the risks/costs to local people and environments?
2. Do employment opportunities compensate for declines in access to communal resources and other social and cultural costs?
3. Are the environmental and human costs balanced in some way by improving local lives, livelihoods, and cultures?
• A widespread response shared by many people living in the locales in which the shrimp farming industry has expanded is a thunderous "NO!" .
• This is especially true where those protesting industry practices and expansion in places like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Honduras, and Guatemala are murdered.
• Shrimp farming, outside of harvesting and packaging, is not labor-intensive. Neither is the industry known for providing high wages, except to the few aquaculture experts who set up and maintain production systems.
• Add to this the fact that income from pre-existing livelihood activities like fishing and farming may be affected negatively by the loss of habitat and environmental degradation.
• Benefits related to broadening the economic base of rural areas, generating local employment, enhancing food security, and conserving local environments are minor compared to the overarching objectives of industrial shrimp farming - generating profits for corporations and increasing foreign exchange earnings for Third World nations.