The fishermen cooperative federation Fishcopfed has opened its second fish retail outlet at New Motibag (near Leela palace hotel) in New Delhi recently. The shop was inaugurated by Sanjay Bhoosreddy, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India.

The Outlet has been rented out to Fishcopfed by the Ministry of Urban Development, govt of India.

Fishcopfed shall supply quality fish to local customers in hygienic condition.

The Cooperative Federation shall sell inland, marine and brackish-water fishes. The effort of Fishcopfed was earlier lauded by Dr Sudhir Krishna, Secretary in the Union Urban Development Ministry,GOI.

Fishcopfed is already having a retail shop at Yusuf Sarai Community Centre (near Uphhar cinema).

Talking to Indian Cooperative.com B.K. Mishra, MD, Fishcopfed said that Fishcopfed has an ambitious plan to expand its chain of fish retail outlets at Delhi and in other metropolitan cities shortly.

With a demand to continue with the subsidy given to the fishermen on diesel prices, a delegation of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress committee met Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

The delegation which also included Fishcopfed Chairman Prakash Lonare later met Union Petroleum Minister Shri Veerappa Moily also in New Delhi.

Both the leaders took note of the problem and assured of taking appropriate steps.

The delegation led by In-charge Maharashtra and CWC Member Shri Mohan Prakash, CM Shri Prithviraj Chavan and MPCC President Shri Manikrao Thakare met Rahul Gandhi at 10.45 am at his residence 12,Tuglak Lane, New Delhi. In this 15 minute meeting, Rahul has assured of giving relief to the fishermen.

After this meeting the delegation met Veerappa Moily at 11.30 am and discussed the problems faced by the community. Shri Moily appreciated the efforts of Pradesh Congress and assured of taking immediate steps.

Shri Prakash Lonare, Shri Namdeo Bhagat, Shri Ramesh Patil and Shri Ramdas Sandhe were the other members who represented the delegation.

The growth of apex fisheries cooperative federation continues unabated with the FISHCOPFED posting a profit of Rs 1.10 crore this year- a jump by more than 20 lakhs in an atmosphere of economic recession.

In the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the FISHCOPFED held on Friday in Sarita Vihar office of Fishcopfed in Delhi, a jubilant Managing director B K Mishra said that we aim to get higher and higher.

The AGM was held in the newly built Training Hall erected with the help of Labour Cooperative Federation in the true spirit of cooperation is cooperative, informed Mr B K Mishra to Indian Cooperative.com. Fishcopfed’s  turn-over also grew by 20 percent , added Mr Mishra.

Delegates coming from different parts of the country demanded that since most of the fishermen are poor they should be covered under BPL scheme. Presently about 80 per cent of them belong to BPL category.

Fisheries cooperatives of Maharashtra participating in the AGM demanded opening up of ice plants and cold-storages so that they could preserve their produce to get good returns on them later.

But the major demand coming from the delegates related to taking fish off the hook of Forest Act. According to this act, fish is treated as a wild animal and fishing is banned in forest areas thereby restricting a large swath of land from any fishery culture.

Fishcopfed has conducted training programme with the help of fertilizer giant Iffco for those farmer-members of latter who also possess water-bodies. Fishcopfed tried to motivate them to go in for fish culture, said M D Mishra to Indian Cooperative.

We are also seeking help of IKSL (Iffco Kisan Sanchar Limited) in distributing SIM cards to the fishermen. The effort has just begun but we hope to go a long way, said Mr Mishra.

A delegation of Fishcopfed visited China to study cost effective cold storage, ice-plant and fish processing facilities for primary fisheries cooperative sector in India.

Fishcopfed earlier prepared a data of about 14,000 primary fisheries cooperative and is trying to network them for day to day interaction. The team had earlier met Union Minister Sharad Pawar to apprise him of its ambitious plan of providing electric power  cold storage to primary cooperative societies.

The delegation comprised of Prakash Marotrao Lonare, President, FISHCOPFED, B.K. Mishra, Managing Director and directors of FISHCOPFED board including Damodar Tandel.

Marketing of fish is the main challenge before apex fisheries cooperative as poor fisherman is forced to sell its produce cheap to the middleman in the want of any preservation facilities.

FISHCOPFED wishes to strengthen them by providing cost effective, energy efficient and environment friendly cooling machineries.

Hope the trip was unlike other sojourns by cooperative leaders which are mostly meant for fun and frolic.

A delegation of fisheries cooperatives led by Fishcopfed Chairman Prakash Lonare met Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Friday in Delhi to apprise Fishcopfed’s effort to erect a network of cold storage for the preservation of fish.

Talking to Indiancooperative.com Mr Lonara sounded very enthusiastic on the Minister response. ‘Sharadji wanted us to go ahead with the project as we told him of our project of helping 1000 primary fisheries cooperatives in marketing fresh fish”, Lonare said.

Fishcopfed has collected data on the fisheries cooperatives which, according to its Managing Director are 15000 in number. “We have short-listed about one thousand primary fisheries cooperative societies which would be wired in the cold-storage network first” Lonare added.

Besides Chairman, the delegation to Minister comprised of Fishcopfed Vice-Chairman, its Managing Director, Nandu Patil, ICL representative Yashpal Bhola and others.

“I and our MD Mr Mishra are leaving for China next month to study preservation of fresh fish practiced in that country. There is ice-factory and cold storage attached to the fishing boat and it helps keep the fish fresh which in turn fetches good return from the market”, Lonare said.

Mr Prakash Lonare, President, National Federation of Fishermen’s Cooperatives Ltd.(FISHCOPFED) to visit Korea on the eve of 50th anniversary of the establishment of Korea National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives.

Mr. Lonare has been invited to the event for the celebrations. He would also give an expert view on the  progress of Fishcopfed. The event would start on 2nd April and would culminate on 4^th April in Seoul, Korea.

In 1962, Korea National Federation of Fishermen’s Cooperatives was established to promote the social, economic and cultural status of fishermen and increase welfare of fishing communities in Korea.

This year is the 50th anniversary of its establishment. Its last half century has been a rough voyage to develop the status of fishermen and fisheries and to support middle and low income people in Korea.

It also has been a sailing to enroot the cooperative movement in Korea.  Korea National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives and National Federation of Fishermen’s Cooperatives are the members of International Cooperatives Fisheries Organization (ICFO).

Mr. B.K. Mishra, Managing Director of National Federation of Fishermen’s Co-operatives (FISHCOPFED) attended the Seminar and General Assembly of NEDAC (Network for Development of Agricultural Co-operatives in Asia) of the UN held from 27 November to 3rd December, 2011 at Tagatay City, Philippines.

The Seminar was on the topic `Current Trends in Development of Agricultural Co-operatives in Asian Countries with Special Reference to Legislative Changes and Policy Initiatives’. The seminar was followed by the General Assembly of NEDAC on the 1^st of December, 2011.

The seminar and the General Assembly were hosted by the Co-operative Development Authority (CDA) of the Philippines.

In the elections held during the General Assembly, Mr. B.K. Mishra of FISHCOPFED was elected as a member of the Executive Committee of NEDAC. NEDAC has representation from 12 countries in Asia.

This was the first time that FISHCOPFED represented NEDAC meetings and by electing Mr. Mishra to the Executive Committee, it was felt that the Fishery Sector will be very well amalgamated into Agricultural Co-operatives in the Region.

National Co-operative Development Corporation (NCDC) has retained the Presidentship of NEDAC and Mr. Mishra’s election to the Executive Committee is in addition to the representation of NCDC.

Mishra is quite happy that NEDAC, which was set up for Agricultural Co-operatives in the Region, has agreed to include the FISHERY sector in the activities of NEDAC.

There are 10 million fishermen and FISHCOFED, the apex cooperative federation of them is at the vanguard of fish revolution. Government of India is committed to lend all help to fisheries cooperatives so that the lot of fisherman could be improved.These are the words of Union State Minister for agriculture Harish Rawat who was speaking at a function of Fishcofed in New Delhi on Thursday.

Mr Rawat was speaking at a programmes organized by FISHCOFED on the  theme “Food and Social Security of Fishers through Fisheries Cooperatives”. He emphasized on the need of Fishcofed intensifying its training program to fishers.

The programmes was attended by Chairman of Fishcofed Prakash Lonare, Managing Director B K Mishra, NCDC Executive Director, Vice Chairman of Fishcofed , Directors of Fishcofed and many others.

Though there are 25 state level Federations, only 17 are  members of Fishcofed. Mr B K Mishra assured that effort would be made to include all state federations. We should not forget that fishers are the real masters and we are merely their servants. At our present rate of training ,250 years would be required to train 10 million fishermen. He exhorted everybody to come forward to strengthen the cooperative movement so that the quality of life for fishermen improves.

Fishcopfed has covered  32 lakh fishermen under group insurance scheme. Mr Mishra said that insurance alone is not enough,there is need to focus on scientific fishing and model marketing to lend strength to the movement. Networking of about 15000 primary fisheries cooperative has been done by Fishcofed which could prove useful for any central government policy and its implementation, he added.

NCDC Executive Director Mr Hasan said that fishermen being weaker section of population, liberal funding is available with NCDC and  we are eager to lend our full support. He reminded that NCDC is also member of Fishcofed as it has bought share capital.

Maharashtra Fisheries Cooperative leader Mr Damodar Tandel  wanted entry of Fishcofed into marketing so that fishermen are not exploited by the middle man and get return of their hard labour. Apex cooperative should also fix  support rates and should directly buy  fish from the fishers. What does fisherman get even though fish to the tune of Rs 10 thousand crore is exported, he asked. Insurance alone would not help as we need to be truly proactive, he warned the assembled gathering.

Fishcofed Chairman Prakash Lonare is a relaxed man today as court cases relating to his election have been dismissed by Nagpur High Court. There were arbitration cases also against him which have been adjudicated in his favour.

Lonare now intends to focus on the growth of fisheries cooperatives. Enthused by the success of insurance scheme for fisherman as reported earlier, Mr Lonare told Indiancooperative.com that he intends to usher in an era of cold-storage for keeping fish fresh.

There are some technologies in Japan which do not use electric power and yet keeps the storage working, he told. We are in talk with some private players who are active in this field and wish to achieve success on the lines of insurance, he confided.

Having storage in all the major fisheries areas would revolutionize the fisheries cooperative as we can dictate our price and make most of it for our members, Lonare said.

Prakash Lonare is proud of the fact that he belong to Zero mile pillar in Nagpur which is held as centre of India and which was represented by famous J C Berbe.  It was Mr Barbe who set up Nagpur district Fisheries Cooperative Federation after talking to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mr Barbe was Member of Parliament.

Referring to internecine infighting in cooperatives in general Mr Lonare said too Indiancooperative.com that positive thinking is important for ushering in a culture of consensus and cooperation. He is planning to invite scholars for lectures to instill the true spirit of cooperation among cooperators.

Report by  Manoj Kushwaha and Dhananjay Mishra

The poor cousin of cooperative Fishcofed (apex body of fishermen cooperative) exhorted government to give it a chance to usher in blue revolution in the country. Posting a profit of Rs 92 lakh from a meager Rs 5 lakh last year, the AGM of Fishcofed demanded to be made the nodal agency for housing project for fishermen. For ambitious insurance project, Fishcofed is the nodal agency.

Talking to Indiancooperative.com soon after the conclusion of AGM held on Friday, Prakash Lonare, the Chairman of Fishcofed said that Maharashtra occupies special place in the activities of fishermen. The AGM has decided to open an office in Mumbai. A processing unit costing Rs 50 crores would be also set up for famous pomphret variety of fish at  Vasai in Thane district of the state, he added.

Other issues discussed at AGM pertained to training program of fisherman. General Body demanded that government should employ Fishcofed for this purpose as NFDB is not as active at  grassroot level as  us. We are at the delivery point, said the Chairman.

Talking to Indiancooperative.com Fishcofed Managing Director B K Mishra added that we were in  the process of preparing data on cooperatives. About 25 lakh members of 15 thousand  fishery societies have been included .We want government to chip in computerizing  each society.

Through computerization each of the societies would be linked to us and can thereby benefit from government schemes through the cyber medium, Mr Mishra added. We are ready with the blueprint of blue revolution if only government lends its hand to us, said a confident MD.