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Assessing Livelihood Impacts of Cage Based Fish Fingerlings Production on Adivasi Households in North-east and North-west Bangladesh

N. Gupta
Department of Aquaculture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh.

M. M. Haque
Department of Aquaculture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

livelihoods with lack of resources. Cage based fish fingerling production (CBFFP) was promoted with Adivasi households in the north-east and north-west regions of Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire based survey was conducted with a sample size of 150 CBFFP adopting households to assess the livelihood impacts of CBFFP on the Adivasi households. Geographically, the study represents Sherpur and Netrakona districts from north-east and Dinajpur, Rangpur, and Joypurhat districts from north-west regions of Bangladesh. In terms of socio-economic characteristics, the average household size of Adivasi households was 4.21± 1.28 with day labour (40%) based primary occupation. Majority (64%) of households heads were found illiterate and the remaining with low level education attainment. Most of the Adivasi households depended on a single person’s (household head) income. The average size of ponds in which the cages were set was about 1.2±1.4 hectare with the depth of 1.5-3 m. The cage provided with Adivasi farmer was of 1 m³in size and made of locally available materials, mainly bamboo made frame, net and plastic bottles as floats. The average cost of a cage construction was about BDT 400±85.2 (USD 5.71±1.2). The fry of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), rui (Labeo rohita), mrigal (Cirrhinus cirrhosus), bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), Thai sarpunti (Barbonymus gonionotus) were stocked in the cages for fingerling production. The average stocking density was about 875±507 fry/cage (about 3.4cm in length). In average, fingerling production cost was about BDT 268±129.2/cage (USD 3.83±1.8/cage) and selling value was about BDT 431±509.1/cage (USD 6.16±7.2/cage). The major impacts of CBFFP include increased household level income (1.7%), use of this income to buy livestock for rearing further. Moreover, CBFFP impacted positively on other aspects of livelihoods such as purchasing food in lean period, saving money and paying credit. The large size fingerlings produced in the cages were used as food fish for household level consumption. The main constrains of Adivasi households to adopt CBFFP were poaching of fish from cages and variable access to ponds for cage installation.

Keywords: Adivasi, Socio-economics, Cage culture, Livelihoods, Bangladesh

Location: Sherpur, Netrakona Dinajpur, Rangpur and Joypurhat district, Bangladesh.

Start Date: 00-07-2009

End Date: 00-09-2009

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Commodity: Fish

Objectives:

To assess the impacts of cage based fish fingerlings production on livelihoods of Adivasi households.

Methodology:

This study was conducted in five (5) districts in north-east and north-west regions of Bangladesh. In north-east, the selected districts were Sherpur and Netrakona and in north-west, the selected districts were Dinajpur, Rangpur and Joypurhat, under this study. Several villages were selected under these districts for this study. The selected villages have large number of Adivasi households who adopted cage farming compared to other villages. A sample size of 150 cage adopting Adivasi households was selected randomly from the above districts. Data were collected through questionnaire survey for three months from July to September, 2009. The questionnaire was designed to characterize cage adopting households with socio-economic characteristics and to get the insights into livelihoods impacts of CBFFP on farming households. The questionnaire was tested initially and finalized after repeated corrections. The collected data were entered into the database software MS-Access and analyzed using SPSS (version 11.5). The findings are presented in tabular and graphical forms.

Source of Information: J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 9(2): 319–326, 2011

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The cage farming played a considerable role in the uplifting of the socio-economic condition of Adivasi households and it also increased the fish consumption of Adivasi people. From the results of present study, it can be concluded that cage culture could be a complementary option to alleviate the poverty if Adivasi households get access to the pond for CBFFP. Adivasi people are illiterate thus they are far from the mainstream development of the country. At the school level, applied education for agricultural technologies (e.g. aquaculture) with mother tongue could be incorporated. Major problem of cage culture was accessibility to ponds for cage installation. For this, government and other development organizations should have compulsory components in aquaculture extension to mediate pond access arrangement between Adivasi households and large pond owners. In national fisheries policy Adivasi people should be prioritized to leasing the state-owned ponds for CBFFP and associated aquaculture enterprises.

Knowledge Management: Journal