This study is mainly based on secondary data. Ahmed et al. (2008), Alauddin & Hamid (1999), ATDP II (2005), Barraclough & Finger-Stich (1996), BBS (2007 and 2011), DOF (1994 and 2011), DTS (2006), Hasanuzzaman et al. (2011), Huntington (2003), Khatun (2004), MPO (1986), NACA (2002), Nupur (2010), Raux and Bailly (2002), Rosenberry (1995), Sarwar (2005), and Williams & Khan (2001) are the main data sources for the study.
A survey on the available secondary sources indicates that a separate discussion and published dataset on shrimp (bagda) sector alone are scarce. Rather, the available sources often discuss both the shrimp and prawn together. Therefore, this study considers both shrimp and prawn (SP) aquaculture together. It is observed that there are variations in quantity, timing as well as units used in quantifying the shrimp production in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study considers 2011 as the study year and tries to convert the available price and monetary data of various years to present value (PV) of the year 2011. Moreover, this study uses 1 US$=80 Tk1 exchange rate to convert the ‘PV at Tk’ in US$. The study primarily focuses on the south-west (SW) region of Bangladesh. The Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat districts are defined as the SW region of Bangladesh in this study.
The present study also tries to extend the result and predict for the whole SP producing area of the country. It considers Chittagong and Cox’s bazaar districts in addition to the SW region while discussing from Bangladesh perspective. The considered five districts (Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat, Chittagong and Cox’s bazaar) cover more than 90 percent of total SP producing areas in the country. To construct a representative data of SP production, the study uses six approaches, developed by the authors. The first approach uses total SP production data (in kg) and converts it into million US$ using price data and conversion factor (1 US$=80 Tk). Approach 2 uses total SP cultivated area in hectare (ha) and per unit production (in kg/ha) data and converts it into million US$ following the same method described for Approach 1.
The third and fourth approaches use total SP cultivated area (in ha) and divide it under bagda and galda categories using available data. The third approach uses per unit production (in kg/ha) data and the fourth approach uses per unit production (in Tk/ha) data. Finally, in both the third and fourth approaches, the calculated results are converted into million US$. The fifth and sixth approaches use total cultivated area (in ha) and divide it under extensive, semi-intensive and intensive cultivation methods of SP farming using available data. The fifth approach uses per unit production (in kg/ha) data and the sixth approach uses per unit production (in Tk/ha) data. Finally, in both the fifth and sixth approaches, the calculated results are converted into million US$.
Here briefly describes the considered six approaches. There is no consensus yet in the literatures about which method suits best for calculating the monetary value of produced SP. Moreover, the calculated results vary significantly from each other. Hence, it might be difficult and misleading to advocate for one or more of the said approaches as best fit. For the very reason, the study considers all of these approaches and finally calculates the simple average of these six approaches to confine into a specific number. It also reports the standard deviation of the calculated average value.