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Management Knowledge of Pond Owners on Pond Fish Farming

M. Rahman
Former MS student
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.

M. M. Islam
Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.

M. G. Farouque
Associate Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The study was conducted to determine the pond owners’ management knowledge on fish farming. The study also attempted to describe some selected characteristics of the pond owners and to explore their relationships with the management knowledge on fish farming. Data were collected by structured interview schedule during 20 October to 12 November, 2009 from 118 randomly selected pond owners of Dewanganj Upazila under Jamalpur District. Management knowledge of farmers was computed by asking questions about five major aspects of pond management such pond preparation, fry release, fish feed, fish disease, and harvesting and marketing of fish. Data revealed that the highest proportion (43%) of the pond owners had relatively low knowledge while 27% of them had medium knowledge and about 30% of them had high to very high knowledge on pond fish farming. Knowledge achieved by pond owners on “fish feed” dimension had highest score followed by “pond preparation” dimension score. Education, family size, farm size, pond area, annual income, credit availability, extension media contact, training exposure and cosmopoliteness of the pond owners had significant positive relationship with their management knowledge in pond fish farming.

Keywords: Pond owners, Management knowledge, Pond fish farming.

Location: Chukaibari and Chikajani of Dewanganj upazila under Jamalpur district

Start Date: 20-10-2009

End Date: 12-11-2009

Program Area: Knowledge Management

Commodity: Fish

Objectives:

to determine and describe some selected characteristics of the pond owners;
to determine the management knowledge of the pond owners on pond fish farming; and
to explore relationships between each of the selected characteristics of the pond owners and their management knowledge on pond fish farming.

Methodology:

Study Area, Population and Sampling The study was conducted in two unions namely, Chukaibari and Chikajani of Dewanganj upazila under Jamalpur district. The pond owners of these two unions, whose ponds were currently in culture, were considered as the population for this study. Multi stage random sample procedure was followed in selecting samples. In the first stage, two unions out of seven unions of Dewanganj upazila were randomly selected. The selected two unions were Chukaibari and Chikajani. In the second stage, the total number of pond owners in these two unions was identified and listed with the help of Upazila Fisheries Officer and his field staffs. The number of pond owners in Chukaibari was 114 and that in Chikajani 149. Thus, the target population of the study was 263. In the third stage, about 45 percent of the target population was selected as sample by following stratified random sampling method, considering the unions as strata. Thus, the total sample size stood at 118 taking 67 from Chikajani and 51 from Chukaibari union. Variables of the study and their Measurement The various characteristics of the pond owners were considered as the independent variables of the study. The characteristics were age, education, family size, farm size, pond area, annual family income, credit availability, extension media contact, training exposure and cosmopoliteness. The management knowledge of pond owners on pond fish farming, was considered as the dependent variable. The measurement of the independent variable was done following the methodology developed by Sobhan (1975), Pandey (1989), Hossain and Mahbub (1986), Hossain and Crouch (1992). The measurement of dependent variable, on the other hand, was measured by computing a “management knowledge score”. For computing this score, five major dimensions of pond management such as, pond preparation, fry release, fish feed, disease, and harvesting and marketing were selected. For each dimension, a specific number of questions were asked to the pond owners and the total number of questions was 30. The number distribution for each question was based on the deepness of the knowledge. Each question was assigned specific marks on the basis of its importance and the total assigned marks were 60. A respondent was given marks to each of the questions according to the correctness of their responses. The management knowledge score of a pond owner was obtained by adding the marks for all the 30 questions. This score could range from 0 to 60, where 0 indicated no knowledge and 60 indicated very high knowledge. Data Collection and Analysis Data were collected personally by the principal researcher himself through face-to-face interview from the selected pond owners within the period from 20 October to 12 November, 2009 by structured interview schedule. Qualitative data were converted into quantitative data by means of suitable scoring technique wherever necessary. Pearson’s Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation (r) was used in order to explore the relationships between the concerned variables. Five percent (0.05) level of probability was the basis for rejecting any null hypothesis. The SPSS computer package was used to analyze data.

Source of Information: Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education, Volume 21, No. 1&2, 2009: 17-25 ISSN 1011-3916

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Knowledge is an important factor for pond fish farming but more than two-thirds (70.3 percent) of the pond owners had low to medium management knowledge on various aspects of pond fish farming. Their knowledge was particularly lower in such aspect of pond management as fish disease management, fish harvesting and marketing and release of fish fry in ponds. Thus, there is ample scope to increase the management knowledge of pond owners for pond fish farming through training and other means of knowledge improvement. Correlation analysis indicates that among ten selected characteristics of pond owners, nine characteristics such as education, family size, farm size, pond area, annual income, credit availability, extension media contact, training exposure and cosmopoliteness had significant positive relationships with their management knowledge on pond fish farming. This finding leads to a conclusion that improvement of the above aspects of pond owners by concerned authorities will definitely increase the management knowledge for pond fish farming. Thus, the production of pond fisheries will not be possible to improve to a significant extent unless the concerned authorities take proper steps to improve pond owners’ knowledge in overall pond management and in particular the aspects in which their knowledge is specifically poor. Any programme aiming at increasing pond fish production through enhancement of management knowledge of the pond owners is likely to be successful if there is adequate provision for easy availability of credit to the pond owners.

Knowledge Management: Journal