Entrepreneurial qualities of Litopenaeus vannamei farmers in Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal

Abstract

The entrepreneurial process has been argued as opportunity-driven, creative, and resource-efficient, which could influence the income generation of small farmers who adopted entrepreneurial skills and innovation into their farming operations. Entrepreneurship in the shrimp farming sector is a neglected issue from the perspective of entrepreneurship development efforts. The government of India as well as the government of West Bengal at present are giving importance to this sector considering the potentiality of Litopenaeus vannamei shrimp farming in achieving economic growth. The need is to achieve sustainable growth in the shrimp sector as a whole. The area under L. vannamei culture in West Bengal is 4,127 ha and the production of this shrimp in the year 2017-18 was 22,191MT. In the present study, an attempt was made to understand the entrepreneurial qualities of shrimp farmers in West Bengal. The present study was undertaken in Purba Medinipur, the predominant shrimp farming district of the state. A total of 200 shrimp farmers were selected from the district by using a simple random sampling method. Data were collected with the help of a structured interview schedule with the observation method. The majority of shrimp farmers (60%) had a medium level of entrepreneurial qualities, whereas, 20% of them had high level of entrepreneurial qualities. Entrepreneurial qualities were associated significantly with caste, respondents attended training programme on shrimp farming and adoption behavior towards BMPs of L. vannamei farming.Key words Entrepreneurial qualities; Litopenaeus vannamei; Farmers