Constraint Analysis of Fish Processing in Peri Urban Areas of National Capital Region

Reducing wastage of produces and increasing income of farmers are two important areas which invited more emphasis by any agrarian economy for its sustainability and development. In the changing scenario of life pattern and food habits people generally prefer, ready to take or ready to cook type of food products like milk, processed vegetables, fish and meat. In order to address these, value addition and processing plays a key role. Fish processing sector in India, especially fresh water aquaculture is an emerging area in this. In this study an attempt was done to know about the various constraints faced by the fish processors and their level of severity. Reliability and validity tested Likert like scale was used for this purpose. Significant differences of different dimensions of constraints were compared using Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA (Chi-Square = 19.450, df = 3, p < 0.05). Each set of constraints contains sub categories and they were tested by using Friedman's two way ANOVA. Multiple pair wise comparisons using Nemenyi's procedure/Two-tailed test was also conducted to place them in homogenous groups. Infrastructure related constraints due to lack of cold chain management, storage facility etc. with mean rank 33.80 were identified as the major constraint to existing post-harvest management mechanism in fishery.