A Tryst with Siffs in Keralaa

The origin of the South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS) network, that works in the Marine Fisheries sector, dates back to the Seventies. A diocesan rehabilitation project resettled fish workers from various localities in an uninhabited stretch of coast, later christened Marianad, about 20 km north of Trivandrum, the capital of the state of Kerala. One of the major problems that the fish workers faced in the new settlement was that of marketing their fish catch. The marketing system of the region at that time involved beach auctions. Controlled by merchants and middlemen, the system was inherently exploitative. Confronted with this, the fish workers with the assistance of a team of social workers decided to set up their own marketing system and appointed their own auctioneer. Faced with a determined set of fish workers, the merchants, who till then controlled the business, eventually had to yield. The fishing community then took over a dormant cooperative society that had been registered in the village earlier and started operations formally. This was the first fish marketing society called Marianad Matsya Utpadaka Cooperative Society (MUCS). The society was member-based and marketing-oriented, with membership open only to active fish workers who managed the society themselves. The three core activities of MUCS were marketing of fish caught by members, providing credit for renewal of fishing equipment and promoting savings. This model was gradually spread across to a few adjoining districts of Quilon and Kanyakumari and SIFFS was born with the coming together of all the cooperatives in Trivandrum.