ASSESSMENT OF MAJOR CONSTRAINTS AND INCOME LOSS IN ORNAMENTAL FISH FARMS OF MADURAI DISTRICT, TAMIL NADU

India provides enormous potential for the development of the ornamental fish business. Although the country has conducive environmental and climatic conditions for export production of ornamental fishes, India’s share in global export is less than one percent. To cope with this, the constraints prevailing in ornamental fish farming need to be addressed in order to have a sustainable growth. In the same line, the study was carried out among 44 respondents focusing ornamental fish farms in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu by adopting random sampling technique. The selected farms were classified into small (<0.5 ha) and medium farms (0.5-2 ha) and the data were collected by personally interviewing the fish farmers. The study attempted to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of respondents, existing supply chain, constraints involved in ornamental fish farming, annual revenue loss due to major constraint, treatment cost and expected profit margin. The various constraints observed were classified as production, marketing and others and was ranked using Garrett Ranking Technique. Tabular and percentage analyses were used to estimate the cost of treatment, revenue loss and expected profit margin. Four types of marketing channels were observed in the study area. Disease outbreak was found to be the major constraint faced by the farmers and hence the revenue loss was estimated for the same. The annual revenue loss was found to be higher for the small ornamental units when compared to medium farms. The medium farms showed higher profit margin than small ornamental fish farms.