Aquarium or research, India
ICAR-CIFA, Bhubaneswar
India's national research institute for freshwater fish farming, which bred the improved Jayanti rohu.
The Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, part of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, sits at Kausalyaganga on the edge of Bhubaneswar, among hundreds of research ponds. It grew from a centre of the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute and became an institute in its own right in 1987. Its work on breeding, feeds and pond systems underpins much of India's carp farming.
From induced breeding to Jayanti rohu
Odisha has a special place in Indian fish farming: the first successful induced breeding of Indian major carps, using pituitary extract, was achieved in the state in 1957, a date India marks each 10 July as National Fish Farmers' Day. Building on this, CIFA developed composite fish culture systems and ran a selective breeding programme for rohu, begun with Norwegian partners in the early 1990s, that produced the faster-growing Jayanti rohu, released to farmers.
Research today
The institute breeds catfish such as magur and other native fish to give farmers more species to raise, works on fish health and feed, and trains farmers and officers from across India and abroad. Its scientists also study ornamental fish and freshwater prawns. Critics of fish farming growth point to water pollution and the loss of wild seed, issues the institute's programmes on native species try to address.
Fish of ICAR-CIFA, Bhubaneswar
Still to be written: Catla, Cirrhinus mrigala, Clarias magur.