Awareness of shrimp farmers towards Coastal Aquaculture Authority (CAA) guidelines regarding penaeus vannamei farming

Penaeus vannamei was introduced as an exotic species recommended by Coastal Aquaculture Authority of India (CAAI) in the 2003 and adopted by the progressive farmers applying low saline water in semi-intensive practice of culture from 20092010. Among the potential states of India Penaeus vannamei culture is going on successfully in the coastal and brackish water enriched regions of West Bengal. Apart from that due to diseases and poor farm management by the farmers resulted low production at farmers” door. As a result, there is a prevailing need of preventing the diseases. Keeping these facts in mind this study was conducted to find out the awareness of shrimp farmers towards Coastal Aquaculture Authority (CAA) guidelines regarding Penaeus vannamei farming. To achieve eco-friendly and sustainable development of Penaeus vannamei farming, awareness of shrimp farmers towards Coastal Aquaculture Authority (CAA) guidelines is necessary. The present study was undertaken in Purba Medinipur, the predominant shrimp farming district of the state. Data were collected with the help of structured interview schedule with observation method. Majority (61.5%) of the shrimp farmers were having medium level of awareness towards the guideline of Coastal Aquaculture Authority (CAA), around 20 per cent of their counterparts had low level of awareness. Only 18.5 per cent of the farmers were having high level of awareness regarding different guidelines of CAA. The awareness index of the study area was 61.86. Chi-square test revealed that education, information management behavior, land holding were significantly associated with awareness behavior of farmers towards CAAguidelines of Penaeus vannamei farming.