CSISA

Ben Belton

CSISA aquaculture production economics and

poverty surveys

Introduction

• Three socioeconomic surveys conducted under CSISA in 2012:

•Production economics•Poverty•Market prices

Production economics

• Aim: to understand the profitability, and productivity of major aquaculture systems in Bangladesh, and their place within the wider household/farm economy (this is very poorly documented for the vast majority of systems)

• Coverage: 3165 farm households in 6 hubs districts, representing 14 distinct production systems

• Duration: 5 months

Production economics

• Methodology: – Rapid appraisal with key informants in each hub to

locate Unions with high concentrations of aquaculture and identify main systems

– Field visits for ground truthing– Select a cluster of 2-3 villages from each union– Conduct interviews over 7 day period and attempt

to interview all households in the cluster (aim for minimum 100 interviews)

Production economics

• Current status:– Data entered, cleaned and under analysis

• Expected outputs:– Summary review of aquaculture systems in

Bangladesh– Related papers

Poverty Survey

• Aim: to better understand relationship between commercial aquaculture development and employment, local economic growth and poverty reduction (interested in effects on broader community, not just producers)

• Coverage: 681 households in 9 communities from 3 hubs, representing 6 major systems of aquaculture

Poverty Survey

• Methodology: – Villages selected as subset of production

economics survey to allow for comparisons– Household census conducted in each village– Population stratified by landholding size and

households selected proportionally– Approximately half the households in each

community interviewed (sufficient to ensure ≈5% confidence interval) using household survey based on IFPRI design

Poverty Survey

• Current status:– Data entered, cleaned and under analysis

• Expected outputs:– Summary report and related papers

Market Price Survey

• Aim: to track weekly prices for major farmed and wild fish species at urban and rural wholesale and retain markets in CSISA hubs and disseminate the information to hub managers and other users

• Coverage: 40 markets (9 urban retail, 11 urban wholesale, 9 rural retail, 11 rural wholesale)

• Duration: October 2011 - present

Market Price Survey

• Methodology– Identify major rural and urban wholesale and

retail fish markets in each hub– Recruit a worker in each market to record fish

price data on a weekly basis– Collect data from each market on monthly basis,

enter by smartphone and remotely upload to customized database

– Circulate price database to hub managers and key staff by 20th of each month