Question

Give the merits and demerits of fish culture.

Answer 1

Hint: The fish culture protects some species of fishes from overfishing and well-grown fishes prove to be good sources of nutritious food but at the same time the setup is comparatively costly and may pollute the environment.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Fishes are jawed vertebrates that belong to class Pisces of the phylum Chordata of the kingdom Animalia and hence the farming related to them is called pisciculture, fish farming, or fish culture. It is a part of aquaculture and involves rearing fishes commercially. Some merits of fish culture are as given below –
-Fish culture helps to revive the population of some fishes because they are grown in a protected environment and thus their extinction is also prevented.
-The culture protects edible fishes from their predators and as a result of this, the fish population increases significantly and we get a high yield of fish. Also, the fishes that are grown, are always under monitoring and thus they are prevented from parasitic infections and other illnesses. Healthy fishes provide a better yield.
-In comparison to cattle farming, fish farming or fish culture is relatively easy in the aspects of maintenance, and also the running cost is low in the case of fish culture. It just requires large body water with a clean water supply.
-Fish farming reduces overfishing by fulfilling the demand of a large population and thus overexploitation of the fished living in natural water bodies is reduced.
-Fishes are good sources of proteins and nutrients that are essential for healthy living and the amount of these nutrients is much greater in fishes as compared to the general dairy products.
We saw the merits of fish culture and now, some demerits of this culture are as below –
-The cultured fishes are often treated with some pesticides, disinfectants, antibiotics, etc. and these chemicals lead to water pollution.
-Although the running cost of fish culture is low, the initial setup may be expensive because it needs installation of fish cages, processing of fish food, etc.
-Among the fishes grown in the farm, there is a limited gene pool during breeding and in such conditions; there are chances of genetic abnormalities in the offsprings of fishes.

Note: The merits include how this culture is better than other farming practices in terms of product quality, the nutritious value of the obtained products, the economic benefits, etc. whereas the demerits are basically about the effects of this culture on the environment and also on the health and yield of fishes including the genetic effects.