International Journal of Marine Biology and Research Open Access Research Article Andhra Pradesh State is having significant and most productive agricultural land in the country, a long coastline with aquaculture potential, significant mining and offshore oil and gas reserves, moderate levels of human development, significant entrepreneurial groups, moderately well-developed road and rail infrastructure, growing concentration of industrial activity, considerable potential for renewable energy development, and a large and prosperous Diaspora. The traditional coastal communities of Andhra Pradesh are facing pressure from the land and the depletion of the ocean ecosystem. In particular, the coastal communities at Prakasam district are over burdened with problems of poverty, unfair competition from trawlers, lack of security, unpredictable natural disasters, scarcity of drinking water, industrial pollution and so on. Vodarevu (15.8136° N, 80.3547° E) marine fishing community is one of the suffering communities with poverty and pollution pangs in Andhra Pradesh situated at 7 kms away from Chirala town. In the Vodarevu, majority of the people belong to the Vada Balija caste, but of course, this community includes several small portion of heterogeneous mixture of people from other castes like Pattapu, pallikarulu and matyakarulu. It is a very rare case in Prakasam district to observe the coexistence of marine fishing castes for livelihoods. This kind of collective effort and mutual understandings of their traditional systems are protecting them from fall. It should also be note that this community consist of both fishing and non-fishing groups together that cooperate and coordinate with each other in daily life, while the livelihood of fisheries is threatened in many ways. Social policy objective Fish is a highly perishable food, requiring proper handling and processing, if it is to be utilized in a cost-effective and efficient way for the benefit of those who rely on it for nutrition or income. FAO 2004 [2] estimates that up to 20 mn tonnes of fish are wasted by being discarded at sea immediately after being
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