Knowledge and skill development of Bihar farmers on inland fisheries management: A terminal evaluation

Abstract

The state of Bihar in India has a huge potential in fisheries and the research institutes of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) are involved in building capacity of the fish farmers of the state. Since 2012-13 to 2014-15 about 1279 fish farmers from 21 districts of Bihar State were trained under the Department of Fisheries/Agricultural Technology Management Agency schemes by ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute on inland fisheries management. An ex-post facto study was undertaken to measure the effectiveness of these training programmes. Data were collected from 400 trainees from six different districts of Bihar using a semi-structured interview schedule. The Training Effectiveness Index (TEI) was developed and the results of the study indicated that the logistic regression analysis with socio-economic variables like main occupation, land holding, membership in organisations had positive and significant effect on training effectiveness. The overall effectiveness of training was found to be 87.86% which was recorded under the high effectiveness category. The results also revealed that 44.8% of the trainees were young and they also had positive effect on training effectiveness. About 53% of the farmers perceived that the training situation provided to them was highly satisfactory. The farmers also perceived that these trainings helped them to increase their knowledge and skill, enhance entrepreneurial ability and also motivated them to initiate new enterprises.