Building Strategic Value Addition Model for Sustainable Aquaculture Production and Development - Learning from Indian Experiences

Current seafood exports from India is worth over 1.85 billion US$, the government target to fetch 4 billion US$ by 2010. India has natural advantage of having long & plenty seashore, rivers, lakes, water reservoirs, skilled fishermen and farm community. The target can be achieved by suitable macro economic policies supported by infrastructure to viable & growth oriented enterprises. This study aims at building integrated model for sustainable aquaculture production and development, a challenge for any industry. This research focus on 'Create Value', 'Add Value' and entrepreneur will 'Get Value' as the mantra for developing the model. This research is based on primary and secondary data, focusing on identifying value addition points to build a strategic value addition model for sustainable aquaculture production and development. As opposite to traditional view of maximization of profit, this research focus on customer satisfaction, identifying key success factors, continuous improvement & benchmarking and value addition at each point of value chain. On the basis of empirical evidences, study emphasize innovation at value centers viz. production, processing, marketing, distribution and customer. Primary data sourced from personnel of cost centers of aquaculture enterprises working in India will be analyzed using appropriate statistical tools. Secondary data of aquaculture industry and available literature will be carefully reviewed to find ways and means to enhance competitiveness of the industry by suggesting a strategic & integrated but flexible business model, to suit that churn out benefits from inherent strengths, while overcome weaknesses to create, capture and exploit business opportunities.