Impacts of community-based fish culture in seasonal floodplains on income, food security and employment in Bangladesh

A. B. M. Mahfuzul Haque,Madan Mohan Dey

doi:10.1007/s12571-016-0629-z

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of community based fish culture in seasonal floodplains on fish production, consumption, income, and food security of the participating households in Bangladesh. An analysis was performed using a randomly selected 46 % of the households from the three project and control floodplains; data were collected using longitudinal surveys on a seasonally, quarterly and monthly basis for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. Fish production, income and food security of the participating households was improved due to the adoption of an equitable and inclusive multi-stakeholder approach introduced by the project. Average fish production increased from 124 kg/ha/yr. to 464 kg/ha/yr. The introduced community-based fish culture approach generated 3.74 times more fish income for households in the project sites in comparison to the control sites. Per capita monthly fish consumption increased from 1.26 kg to 2.31 kg in the project sites, which was 32 % higher than the control sites. Project implementation reduced the vulnerability of local beneficiaries, particularly of the landless and poor fishermen, by creating additional fishing opportunity for up to 6 months of the year. Promotion of the community based fish culture in seasonal floodplains may thus be useful in bringing about positive changes in the overall floodplain productivity and livelihood gains for the poor people of Bangladesh.

Highlights

Water is a highly demanded natural resource and a key agricultural input (Grafton et al 2015; Huang et al 2015)
This paper examines the multi-dimensional impact of community based fish culture (CBFC) in seasonal floodplains at both household level and community level, based on data collected under the BCommunitybased Fish Culture in Seasonal Floodplains and Irrigation System^ project in Bangladesh
This study shows that the performance of the CBFC project in terms of labour productivity and returns to labour improved significantly after project implementation; and it was significantly higher in post-implementation periods

Summary

Introduction

Water is a highly demanded natural resource and a key agricultural input (Grafton et al 2015; Huang et al 2015). How water is used is critical for sustainable agricultural intensification and increase of food availability (Grafton et al 2015). Culture of fish in seasonal floodplains can be an important tool for sustainably improving agricultural and floodplain productivity and for strengthening rural economies (Rahman et al 1999; Dey et al 2005a; Dey and Prein 2006; Nagabhatla et al 2012). The Indo-Gangetic Basin of Bangladesh has a large number of seasonal floodplains that offer great opportunities for the promotion of fish culture to benefit the poor. Bangladesh has rich freshwater resources, and has a huge potential for fisheries development. There are 4.69 million ha of inland waters, 58 % of which are floodplains (FRSS 2015)

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion