Attitude of Young Pangas Growers towards Pangas Farming for Improving their Livelihood

The study was conducted to (i) determine young Pangas growers’ attitude towards Pangas farming for improving their livelihood; (ii) explore the relationships between selected characteristics of the young Pangas growers and their attitude; and (iii) determine the problems faced by the young in Pangas farming. A total of 100 youth Pangas growers (35 percent of population) were interviewed by using a structured interview schedule from two villages (Luxmipur and Malotipur) of Muktagacha upazila of Mymensingh district during April to June 2013. Nine selected characteristics of youth viz.: age, level of education, year of Pangas farm establishment, area under Pangas farming, training experience, annual income, credit received, organizational participation and extension media contact were considered as the explanatory variables, while the attitude of the young Pangas growers towards Pangas farming was the focus variable of the study. It was measured with a 5 point likert scale such as “strongly agree”, “agree”, “undecided”, “disagree” and “strongly disagree” in Pangas farming and the corresponding scores were 5,4,3,2, and 1, respectively. The findings indicated that the majority of the respondents (68%) had moderately favorable attitude towards Pangas farming. Most of the respondents (69%) had high problem followed by 15% had low problems. Thus, it can be concluded that the young Pangas growers confronted significant problems in Pangas farming. Institutional supports from Department of Fisheries (DoF), the sole government extension service provider and other non-government organizations may be helpful to minimize their problems. In addition, mass campaign, special training program on Pangas farming is needed to increase the income of Pangas growers as well as improving their livelihood. Among the nine selected characteristics of young Pangas growers five explanatory variables such as age, level of education, area under Pangas farming, annual income, credit received were positively correlated to attitude of the youth, while two other variables such as year of Pangas farm establishment and training experience were negatively correlated. The remaining two variables, namely organizational participation and extension media contact, had no correlation with attitude of the young Pangas growers.