Assessment of Major Problems Faced by Coastal Farmers of India

Abstract

The coastal ecosystem is important from both economic and ecological points of view owing to the abundance of natural resources, and diversity and its role in supporting livelihoods. However, coastal agriculture faces multiple challenges such as cyclones, flooding, salinity, seawater intrusion, etc. which affect the production systems and livelihoods of farmers. To identify and rank the problems faced by coastal farmers, we undertook this research study using an online questionnaire with Google-Form and collected responses from 69 respondents covering all the coastal states and Union Territories (UTs) during 2022. The responses were analysed using Garrett’s technique for ranking the reported problems. Our study indicated that the problem of pests & diseases (I), weather-related problems (II) and marketing & prices (III) were the major problems faced by farmers in the agriculture & horticulture sector. While in the animal husbandry & poultry sector, fodder shortage, higher feed cost and lower productivity & profitability were the major problems. In the field of fisheries, shortage of good quality fish seeds (I), lower profitability (II) and lower catch (III) were identified as the major problems.