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Dr Vikram Sharma, Amit Sachan and Dr SN Laharia share
excerpts of their paper titled 'Interaction of fish farmers
with different players of fishery development'
Fish is the cheapest and most easily
digestible animal protein that is being
obtained from natural sources from
time immemorial, for consumption by human
beings. However, due to over-exploitation and
pollution, the availability of fish in natural
waters has declined considerably, forcing
scientists to adopt various methods to increase
its production. Fish farming in controlled or
under artificial conditions has become the
easier way of increasing fish production and its
availability for consumption. Farmers can
easily take up fish culture in village ponds,
tanks or any new water body and can improve
their financial position substantially.
The growth of fish production has been
the fastest in the food sector (except for
potatoes, eggs and poultry meat) since
1950-51. The share of fisheries in GDP from
agriculture has almost doubled from 1.90
per cent in 1980s to 3.89 per cent in 1990s. It
is thus evident that fishery occupies a very
pivotal position in the economic development
of India. In spite of this fact, there are no
scientific data available on the existing and
desired level interactions of fishery growers,
with different sub-systems of fishery
development. It was, therefore, proposed to
conduct a study on interactions of fish
growers with special reference to culture
fisheries. The objective of this paper is to
ascertain the mode and nature of interaction
of fish farmers between different sub-systems
of fishery development and their effect on
fisheries development. The study was
conducted in 50 villages in Haryana to assess
the mode, nature and intensity of fish farmers'
interaction between various sub-systems of
fish production. Descriptive statistics,
correlation analysis and regression analysis is
used to analyse the data. Findings of the study
provide key information to government, policy
makers and organisations involved in fishery
production about the issues related to
interaction. This will help them in framing
future policies for fishery development.
The study is of exploratory nature to find
out the mode, nature and intensity of farmers'
interaction with various players in the fish
production sub-systems. The focus is to study
interaction within and between the various
sub-systems of fishery development and see
that it meets all the four above-mentioned
parameters. In the present study, the
interaction has been operationalised as 'oral
interaction' having the physical presence of
two or more than two persons in a
formal setting.
Research methodology
At present, there are 19 districts in Haryana.
Since it was not possible to conduct the study
in all the districts, it was decided to have it in
some select ones. All the districts were
categorised into five categories namely very
good, good, average, below average and poor
on the basis of quality of water. One district
from each category was selected randomly -
the districts which we selected were
Yamunanagar, Karnal, Gurgaon, Hisar and
Rohtak. Then again, two blocks from each
district were selected randomly. The list of
villages having fishery programmes was
prepared with the help of officials of fishery
department of Government of India. Out of
that list, five villages from each block were
