Promotion of Fish Production and Doubling Farmer’s Income among Scheduled Caste Fish Farmers in Assam, India

Abstract

Aquaculture plays an important role in supporting livelihoods worldwide and also forms an important source of diet for over one billion people. The inland fisheries are of particular importance to the rural poor accounting for about fifteen per cent of total global employment. Besides employment, it caters to the nutritional need of the rural poor. Being an agrarian economy, fish farming is one of the important livelihood activities in Assam. Though “Kaibartta” is the main fishing community in Assam the profession has been taken over by the immigrant Muslim people in various districts of the state. Nevertheless, Scheduled Caste people living in rural areas have their own ponds at the back of their houses and they culture fish for domestic consumption. It is observed that rural farmers lack exposure to scientific fish farming and this may be considered one of the obstacles to low production and productivity. Thus, looking into the huge potentiality of the sector and its associated problems, a small intervention in the form of capacity building of the fish farmers’ belonging to the Scheduled Caste and distribution of various fishery inputs was undertaken. Twenty percent of three villages belonging to Schedule Caste in the Nagaon district were selected randomly for the interventions to be administered. The paper analyses the process of implementation along with the outcome of the project on the sample households. The result shows that the intervention has augmented the knowledge base and skill of the SC farmers and thereby enhances household income and nutritional security in a sustainable manner.