Empowering Fish-Farmer through Coastal Field School: Towards Sustainable Aquaculture Practice

Abstract

Central Java Province is among the largest aquaculture producers in Indonesia. This hefty contribution also comes with a challenge of degraded coastal areas primarily due to mangrove conversion into ponds, land subsidence, and raising sea surface. In Demak Regency, abrasion and robs flood have adversely affected the farmers’ aquaculture ponds since the past decades. The changing coastal environment and lack of knowledge to adapt in aquaculture management led to declining production that hampered the community’s resilience in the future. To help the farmers to thrive, an initiative called Coastal Field School (CFS) was implemented in 10 villages in Demak. Principally, CFS is a participatory learning method that emphasizes problem solving and discovery based on learning toward their production systems. The entire CFS program took place in 2015 – 2020, however this study only focused on the CFS conducted in Bedono village during May 2019 – September 2019. This paper discusses the CFS impact on the farmers’ knowledge change using the indicators of farmers’ program participation level, pre-test and post-test result to determine the knowledge improvement, aquaculture management technique, and productivity rate. The test was analyzed using a paired t-test where the knowledge level of farmers increased significantly (p < 0.001). The farming productivity rate also improved by nearly 30%. It is concluded that CFS can strengthen the farmers’ resilience in the degraded coastal area in Demak.