KOCHI: An academic delegation from a Mexican university visited Cochin University of Science and Technology on Monday to study how the institute has managed to successfully hatch and farm a valued freshwater shrimp species, Macrobrachium rosenbergil.
The Mexican university, Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco, is eager to study the method adopted by Cusat to hatch and farm a valued freshwater shrimp species, Macrobrachium rosenbergil, as a similar species — Macrobrachium carcinus– which is found in Mexico is slowly becoming extinct.
Macrobrachium carcinus, which was distributed along the Latin American coast has now been put in the red list as it is considered to be an endangered species. “In Mexico along fishing of Macrobrachium carcinus is now permitted. But they fear that due to over exploitation, this shrimp species, which costs anything between Rs 1000 and Rs 1800 per kg, will soon become extinct even in Mexico. Therefore, since last two years they have been trying to hatch or farm them but without much success”, said Cusat registrar, A Ramachandran.
Cusat has entered an MoU with the Mexican university, enabling two Mexican students to come to Cusat to study the hatchery technology of Macrobrachium rosenbergil. Cusat would also help Mexico develop a hatchery technology that would enable them to successfully hatch Macrobrachium carcinus.
“They expressed a desire to visit Cusat after reading online the research papers published by Cusat on Macrobrachium rosenbergil farming and hatchery, for they want to effectively adopt the methods used by us to hatch Macrobrachium carcinus, which is put in the red list in South America. Therefore, we have entered an MoU with the Mexican university and hope this is the beginning of a new academic relation with Mexico”, said Cusat VC, Ramachandran Thekkedath