Study of processed smoked fish for cure to cough and cold of villagers for rural area of India as traditional medicine

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Sushant Punekar

BLP Govt. P.G. College, India

: J Regen Med

Abstract

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India has rich and varied inland fisheries resources in the form of pond, reservoirs, rivers, lake etc. agriculture, forest & craft was the only source of livelihood for these fisherwomen, intense efforts are being made at upgrading the skills of women and providing them with greater opportunities and demand for smoked fish in fisheries sector in the Satpudha region in Madhya Pradesh, India. The Jabalpur Division in M.P. is the largest smoked fish market, where smoke fish from almost all nearby districts is brought, traded and taken to the other districts in the region. The fisherwomen of this area are mostly involved is fish farming and are eaters of smoked local fishes. Fisherwomen have involved various technologies in fisheries over a period of time by trial and error, continuous observations and evaluation to use the traditional practices in this field. The specific objectives of this study were to document, methods and utility of indigenous knowledge of fisherwomen for smoking of fishes as medicine for cough & cold in Chhindwara district and to explore their own rationale behind the use of this knowledge. Traditional processing techniques are in harmony with socio-economic condition imposed by the alternating floods and recessions of the river system migration of fish and fishermen, absence of freshwater fish pond, strong traditional marketing system for wet and dried fish, prawn and traditional food habits and also traditional medicine for cure of cough, fever and cold for their communities. The present study on smoke fish at Chhindwara district reveals that the quality of smoke fish general is very good. Consumers of smoke fish in this region are poor tribal labourers working in plantations; estates coal mines and weaker sections in the society. Their socioeconomic and educational back grounds compel them to go for low cost stuffs smoked fish towards their cough, fever and coldness for instant cure by eating less than 50gm. of smoked fish and its curry rather that quality product. Found the reasons for adopting traditional practices by fisherwomen in Chhindwara district and to explore their own rationale behind the use of this knowledge. The findings to the present study indicated that majority of the fisherwomen were high adopters of recommended traditional smoked technology and these ITKs are being widely used and are quite popular, it is commonly observed that they stress more on fish than local prawn as they get quick return from it. As there is much demand of smoked fishes in rural market, fisherman quite often smoked fishes and do sell it round the year. However the fishermen are not aware of the improved post-harvest technique and uses as medicine of smoked fishes. Awareness programme to improve the quality of smoke fish is the need of the hour which will ensure quality improvement and thereby good health as traditional medicine available at their area of the consumers as well as contribute better returns to the producers and dealers.

Biography

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