Impact of fishing technologies on wellbeing of fisherwomen in Tamil Nadu

Technological innovations in agriculture and fishing have been thought to increase production, productivity, and income, alleviate poverty and reduce workloads. However, they can affect men and women differently by reinforcing gender inequalities, restrict access, and displace women as newly mechanised tasks become the domains of men.

The fisheries sector is no exception to this and it has been found that enclosure technologies in aquaculture or motorisation and mechanisation of fishing gears have ended up exacerbating existing inequalities among men and women.

The invisible work of women in the fishing community

Women’s work in the fishing sector continues to be invisible resulting in its undervaluation in economic terms. Thus, while women’s work often supports, helps and sustains men’s fishing work, women are rarely involved in fishery related decision-making at local or national levels. Women’s roles in pre- and post- harvest fishery activities remain largely invisible and research and policy investments continue to focus more on improving fish capture technologies that fall  under the domain of men.

What is ring seine fishing

The net with the fish catch is hauled to the mother boat. If the shoal is very big, partial harvest with scoop nets is done. Catch by small vessels is transported directly by the fishing units themselves to the landing centres and the small vessels return to the same ground to fish until the shoals are exhausted. Thus in a day, two to three operations are carried out by small vessels, depending on distance to the ground. In the case of larger crafts, while the vessel remains in the fishing ground and continues fishing, one or more carrier vessels associated with it are used to transport catches to the shore.

In the ring seine sector, ownership of the fishing units is either individual or collective. The individual ownership is restricted to smaller crafts, which are generally non-motorised or fitted with outboard motors (OBM). For larger sized crafts, the ownership is collective with the unit being owned by a group of fishermen who are share holders.

Ring Seine fishing in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu

Ring seine fishing flourished in Tamil Nadu following the tsunami with Cuddalore district becoming a regional “hot spot”.  Early success led to a rapid spread of the ring seine technology and huge investments were made in steel boats, more than 25 m in length, with in-board engines of over 500 hp. The size of the nets also increased and local fishers developed collaborative mechanisms for sharing the cost of nets and vessels, with groups of 20–30 fishers pooling both capital and labour, making ring seines available and lucrative for many. The craft remained unchanged, but a new gears with mesh size of 110 mm and a net size of 2000 to 2100 m were made making them closer to a regular purse seine.

This expansion occurred despite the Tamil Nadu Marine Fisheries Regulation (Amendment) Act of 2000, which banned the operation of trawl and purse seine gears in order to prevent exploitation of fish.  However, mechanisation and capitalisation of ring seine fisheries met with growing opposition from small scale fishers, due to concerns around overfishing and stock depletion alongside issues of fairness and social justice.

How did the ban on ring seine fishing affected women from the fishing communities?

While ring seines negatively impacted some small-scale fishers and fish stocks,  the low price and availability of fish made it easy for fisherwomen to access the market to purchase fish for vending and drying. Thus women from female headed households (widows, separated, or whose husbands were unable to work) took up fish vending out of financial necessity, because stigma prevented them from accessing loans or finding other employment.  

Women working as auctioneers, vendors, fish cutters and those drying fish, as well as wives of fishermen from two villages close to the Old Town harbor in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu were interviewed for this study ​​​​​​.

Women fish auctioneers in Cuddalore

Becoming an auctioneer needs skills such as voice strength, persistence, risk-taking, negotiation and persuasion. Fishing women from different economic levels, single women became auctioneers by relying on a network of women, be it mothers or friends to learn the skills required for auctioneering and to understand market relationships between traders, boat owners, and vendors.

In addition to the advances, boat owners also expect a Pongal (harvest festival in January) gift to be distributed to the crew besides a small cut from the initial advance, so the auctioneer needs to add an extra sum of money to keep the advance amount stable. Auctioneers thus have to go through a complex process of juggling loans and speculating on profits. However, even if women auctioneers may help finance a boat, they are not considered owners or shareholders, and boats remain a predominantly male asset. Likewise, when a husband dies, his initial investment is returned to his wife rather than her maintaining a share in the vessel.

Auctioneers take five distinct, though interconnected routes to financing their work: (1) collective pooling of resources; (2) personal savings; (3) loans from private lenders; (4) loans from family and friends; and (5) savings in community chit funds.

Growing indebtedness

Although the expansion of ring seines across the state opened up opportunities for women to venture into more profitable roles as auctioneers, the scale of investments and accompanying expenses increased rapidly with the growing size of vessels. The ring seine ban in 2021 has had a devastating impact on women auctioneers, affecting their quality of life and wellbeing, and pushed them into growing indebtedness

Fish have become more expensive as the supply of fish is reduced and vendors compete among themselves for stock. Women are therefore unable to access fish for drying or vending at a profitable price, restricting the availability of this important income stream for families.

Women experience constraints in making best use of available technologies

The paper argues that it is important to understand the constraints that determine women’s ability to access the opportunities created through new fish capture technologies and of how these differing gender constraints and contexts can make the impact of policy decisions uneven. The ring seine ban has had a devastating impact on women auctioneers who have invested large sums of money, yet are invisible when it comes to accessing compensation or industry funding intended for men involved in the fish catching sector. Even if men too have not been compensated, they can return to small-scale fishing or migrate for work. These options not available to women.