El Niño Could Thin India’s Sardine Shoals
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The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute is warning that El Niño warming may intensify from October to December and affect the northern Indian Ocean by April-May 2027, potentially contributing to a decline in sardines next year. Sardines may be small fish, but in coastal food systems they carry a big load. They feed families, support fishing crews, supply processors, and influence marine food webs.
El Niño changes ocean temperatures and currents, and fish notice before most of us do. Sardines are especially sensitive to shifts in water temperature, plankton availability, and upwelling patterns. When the ocean pantry moves or thins, the shoals may move, shrink, or become harder to catch. For fishers, that can mean longer trips, higher fuel costs, and lower landings.
The ripple effects reach shore quickly. Ice plants, auction yards, drying units, fishmeal operations, retailers, and coastal households all feel the change when a common fish becomes less common. In agriculture, this can even brush against livestock and aquaculture through feed ingredient markets. The sea and the farm are more connected than they look from the road.
For fishing communities, early warning is valuable only if it leads to preparation. That might mean adjusting effort, diversifying target species, improving cold-chain management, strengthening savings groups, or using advisories to avoid wasted fuel. For policymakers, it means climate information needs to reach harbors in usable language, not stay bottled up in research reports.
Farmers understand this kind of uncertainty well. A fishery facing El Niño is not so different from a rainfed field watching the monsoon. You cannot command the weather or the ocean, but you can plan around probabilities. The trick is listening early enough to make the plan useful.
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BusinessLine - Read original articleMore from today's edition
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