Role of Shrimp Farming in Generating Employment and income: A Study of Small- Scale Shrimp Farming in West Bengal, India

摘要

In the light of the usual allegation against shrimp farming as an employment displacing activity, this paper tries to examine the role of shrimp farming in generation of employment and income for small scale shrimp farmers in West Bengal, India using primary data collected from 208 traditional and scientific shrimp farmers in West Bengal. The analysis reveals that the labour used (including family labour) for traditional and scientific shrimp farming were 101 mandays per acre and 300 mandays per acre respectively. Both the figures were more than the labour requirement for paddy cultivation in West Bengal. The finding refutes the allegation against shrimp farming as an employment displacing activity as compared paddy cultivation. A comparison of the household income of sample shrimp farmers with the rural poverty line in West Bengal revealed that shrimp farmers of all the categories (small, medium and large) were above the poverty line. However, per capita annual household income of marginal traditional shrimp farmers was quite close to the poverty line which emphasizes the need for pondering special extension facilities to these shrimp farmers. The study also shows that on the whole shrimp farming accounted for about 70% of the annual household income of the sample households. However the importance of shrimp farming was lesser in the case of shrimp farmers with lesser shrimp farm size. This indicates the quest of marginal and small shrimp farmers to diversify their source of income in order to cover the risk associated with shrimp culture. On the whole shrimp farming was proved to be an employment generating activity and had contributed significantly to the income of the sample households.