Engaging in agriculture has been recognized as a primary livelihood strategy (Hallman et al. 2003) of active and passive households. Usually households whose primary source of income is agriculture are more concerned about land conservation compared to others whose livelihood does not derives mainly from agriculture (Ervin and Ervin, 1982; Mehta and Kellert, 1998). More rural household heads also preferred agriculture as the primary occupation compared to peri-urban probably as a consequence of less access to non farm occupation in rural areas (Satterthwaite and Tacoli, 2002), though in the peri-urban area it was also a highly preferred occupation.
A small proportion (14%) of active integrated households in the peri-urban areas considered fish culture as a primary occupation perhaps due to better marketing access. Fish culture was perceived more likely as a secondary activity by similar numbers of better and worse off active households, reflecting similar importance to these groups (Bestari et al. 2005). However, the contribution of fish culture to the total income of the households was secondary, a finding similar to that of another study carried out in Mymensingh (Hallman et al. 2003).
Farming systems
Peri-urban and active households applied significantly more rice bran, oil cake, and organic and inorganic fertilizers than passive which probably explains increased fish production (kg/ha). On the other hand, rural households stocked fish seed more frequently, which is directly linked with their higher consumption frequency from own pond reflected their higher dependency on pond than peri-urban households. On-farm input sources and its utilization was not always found to be linked, for instance the similar rice yields (kg/hh) of active and passive households in peri- urban areas, expected to obtained similar amount of rice bran as by-product, nevertheless active households used greater quantities than passive for growing fish. On the other hand, poorer households could not afford these inputs adequately, though they applied water manually more frequently to their vegetable crops which does not cost money.
In spite of rural and peri-urban household’s having similar numbers of chicken and cattle, the frequencies of organic fertilizer application in ponds was higher in rural communities, because households in peri-urban areas relied more heavily on the use of other purchased inputs. Frequency of organic fertilizer application for growing vegetable was similar between these two locations but rural households applied organic fertilizer collected from their own, rather than other sources. However, in general the use of crop and manure by-products for crops and fish is location specific (Edwards, 1999a).
Seed is a critical input of both fish and vegetable cultivation, but this input is used by people probably without understanding the quality. The majority of the
households stocked fish seed purchased from itinerant traders (Patilwala) followed by hatcheries while very few households used their own seed. Strategies towards decentralized seed production of small carps and tilapias is advocated, which have potential to alleviate poverty as local seed production would reduce cost, improve the quality of seed, generate employment and income (Bhuiyan, 1999).
Pesticide application (by number of households and frequency) was affected by location and groups, which is difficult to explain, although active households tended to apply more frequently than passive households to protect their crops. However in general it could be pointed out that a substantial number of households applied pesticide probably to enhance their vegetable production, though lack of awareness about the effect of pesticide on human health and environment as one of the awareness issues highlighted in a recent study (Rahman, 2003). Hence, lack of awareness about the effect of pesticide has been revealed from the rational analysis of vegetable cultivation, whereas a very small number of better educated respondents supported that they grew vegetable in their own field to grow ‘insecticide free’ vegetables.
“No need to buy fish from market” and ‘no need to spend money’ for buying fish and ‘selling vegetables’ are the major motivational issues highlighted by the rural households that most likely reflected their financial goal of using home-produced food to reduce cash expenditure (Torlesse et al. 2004) and because of poorer access to markets that increase both the cost of purchase and marketing costs of their own products.
A higher dependency on agriculture might be viewed as the most vulnerable event for the household in general. In addition education, skill, knowledge and information are the major factors, especially for the poorer and non-pond households. Poor access to auction and large markets was a disadvantage for the rural households as they could not sale their farm product (fish and vegetable) to the auction market. In general due to inadequate consumption food items such rice, fish and vegetable often results to malnutrition and illness of the households irrespective of well-being, location and groups. However, further details of household vulnerability will be assessed in the chapter 7.
Mean fish production (2.06 t/ha) was similar to the findings of national production (2.4 t/ha) of the year 2000 (Bestari et al. 2005), while lower compared to a study (3.3 t/ha) carried out recently in greater Mymensingh district (DANIDA, 2004). Fish contributed substantially (17%) to the on-farm income of households, while DANIDA result showed that fish contributed 10% to the total income. On the other hand, the average production (kg/ha) of vegetable of all households was slightly lower compared to the recent study carried out in Bangladesh by AVRDC (Weinberger and Genova, 2005).
4.5.4 Livelihood outcomes
The income US$ 927.32/hh/year revealed from this study was a bit lower than the national income (1,168.37/hh/year) of 2000 (BBS, 2004). Households mainly relied on on-farm income sources (BBS, 2004; DANIDA, 2004; Thompson et al. 2005), though dependency on rice was similar between active and passive, while fish and vegetable contributed more to the income (US$/hh) of active households than
passive. Better off households also benefited more than worse off from selling fish. Active and passive households were more dependant on on-farm income than non- pond households, and on-farm income was revealed from the discriminate analysis as one of the important factors that characterise different type of households. However, instead of active, passive and non-pond household’s different income level there was no difference in expenditure of these households. A similar finding was observed where expenditures did not differ significantly between adopter and likely-adopter of agriculture technology households inspite of different income level (Hallman et al. 2003). This supports the possibilities that income and expenditure may not always be positively correlated.
The worse off households’ average income from fish was US$ 70/hh/year, which is very similar (US$ 63/hh/year) to the findings of a recent study carried out with 3,69,000 poorer households by MAEP project in Mymensingh district (DANIDA, 2004). On the other hand, earning (US$ 104/hh/year) from fish sale of all of the households of this study was slightly lower than the 1.4 million pond aquaculture adopted households (US$145/hh/year) of the same project implemented in greater Mymensingh area, but higher than the 3,96,000 poorer households whose income was US$ 63/hh/year (DANIDA, 2004). Probably the adopting households earned more from fish sale due to their increased production resulting from credit and technical support received from the project.
The per capita fish consumption of this study (77/6.42 kg=11.99 kg/capita/year) was a bit lower than the findings of the study of MAEP (14.03 kg/capita/year) (DANIDA, 2004) and national household expenditure (13.86 kg/capita/year) survey (BBS, 2000a). Active households benefited more in the peri-urban area from selling
more fish than passive and inspite of the dissimilarity in production (kg/ha and kg/hh), active households consumed fish at a similar level to passive from their own ponds. This confirms a previous study, suggesting that increased production does not necessarily tend to increased consumption (Torlesse et al. 2004).
Although subsistence fish consumption in terms of quantity and frequency was similar between active and passive households, the total amount of fish consumed by the active households was probably higher. Active households purchased more fish from the market and wild sources than passive households. A similar result was observed among fish pond owners that were more dependent on capture fisheries than aquaculture for meeting subsistence requirement of diets (Thompson et al. 2005). However, overall better off households’ consumption (amount and frequency) was found to be higher than worse off in this study. The strategies of selling more valuable pond fish and purchasing back cheaper fish and /or catching wild fish appears to better meet their overall needs.
The per capita vegetable consumption was 16.59 kg/capita/year, which was much higher than in a recent AVRDC study (around 12 kg/capita/year). Consumption of farm vegetables in terms of frequency (times/week) was different only between well-being categories. Vegetable production (kg/ha) was higher in active households than passive and non-pond, but production (kg/hh) was similar, even though vegetable land size of active households was smaller than passive and non- pond households, reflecting the greater intensity of productivity (kg/ha) of active vegetable growers.
Fish were more likely to be purchased from the market in peri-urban households than rural, probably because higher access to peri-urban households to market than rural households. Households with ponds were less dependent on the market for fish supplies than households without ponds.
Households’ individual characteristics, feelings and aspirations are known to considerably influence adoption of technology similar to pond-dike systems (Giampietro, 1997). For instance, those who are literate and have relatively better exposure to society and local institutions are more adaptive than illiterate households (Ervin and Ervin, 1982; Rauniyar, 1998; Johnson et al. 1999). Capability of educated households to seek information and get necessary support from government and non-government organizations compared to the less educated, resulted in a higher tendency to adopt technologies.
However, literacy levels, access to information and capital and contact with formal and informal institutions, pond location, and transportation means of active and better-off households was significantly higher than other groups and poorer households respectively. These are probably the important factors for adoption of active integrated farming systems.