Effect of Public Fisheries Extension Service on the Selected Socioeconomic Aspects of the Clients in Two Selected Sub-districts under Barisal District in Bangladesh

Fisheries extension is an education and communication process of delivering knowledge and technical support to the fish farmers, fishermen, and other stakeholders connected with fishing and fish farming system. This study was preceded with the aim of evaluating the effect of public aquaculture extension service on the socioeconomic development of the clients in two selected sub-district namely Barisal Sadar and Babugonj under Bariasal district. To achieve its objectives, this study exerted importance on quantitative approach using face-to-face interview method. However, this research also considered desk studies to reveal the situation. Data were collected with a structured interview schedule for the month of October 01 to October 28, 2015, from 140 randomly selected fish farmers. To find out the effect of public aquaculture extension, 140 farmers were divided into two equal sized groups based on their contract with public aquaculture extension service. Findings of chi-square analysis represented that the farmers in contact with public aquaculture extension service, seems to be significantly in better position in terms of usages of communication media, organizational participation, income from fish farming, knowledge in fish farming, and attitude toward natural resource conservation., etc., than their non-contact counterpart. The findings of the regression modeling established the fact that extension contacts have significant impact on income from fish farming, and attitude towards natural resource conservation. Farmers in response to an open question indicated less frequent extension contact, political interference in selecting group member, lack of input supplies, the absence of regular subsidies, etc. as the main problems with the public fisheries extension service. This study also referred some concrete recommendations for up scaling public fisheries extension service in Bangladesh.