INFORMATION SOURCE PREFERENCE OF FARMERS REGARDING MODERN AQUACULTURE TECHNOLOGIES IN BOGRA DISTRICT OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

Bangladesh economy is relying on aquaculture for its export earning and as a whole fisheries sector is performing very well to mitigate the crisis of dietary need of protein as one of the best animal sources. Main objective of present study was to bring out the extent of use of different information sources by the fish farmers. The study was conducted in Kahaloo and Sherpur upazilas of Bogra district. Respondent were entirely fish farmers selected by using simple random sampling technique. Quantitative data were collected using predesigned interview schedule and SPSS 16 software was used to analyze the collected data.  Majority of the respondents (70%) was found as low to medium user of information sources. On the basis of utilization of information sources, mass media ranked first. Socio-demographic characteristics namely education, fish farming area, annual family income, social participation and innovativeness had positive and significant relationship with use of information sources except age of the respondents. Among all socio-demographic characteristics, education contributed 59.00%, age contributed 6.70% and social participation contributed 2.70 to the explained variance of 68.40%. Therefore educational background of a farmer may play a vital role to change the present scenario of farmers’ preference about information sources. On the other hand there is rampant scope to improve the present condition of farmer’s information management through extension workers, field supervisors and fisheries officer of GOs and NGOs as well.