Capacity building of officers for market led fisheries extension system

The Department of Fisheries, West Bengal is involved in orienting towards the increase in farmers’ income by increasing fish production. This effort becomes ineffective without the knowledge of marketing. Accordingly, this study was conducted in Nadia district, West Bengal to assess the capability of the officials in order to establish market-led extension approaches in the study area. In the present study, the training needs and knowledge levels of fisheries officers working in the state department of fisheries were assessed. The training need index was found to be highest for food safety and quality standards and it was least for institutional aspects in fish marketing. Knowledge level assessment of the officers revealed that the officers had comparatively better knowledge on the areas of alternative marketing methods, institutional aspects and supply chain aspects in fish marketing whereas lacks knowledge on the areas of infrastructure management, marketing information and food safety and quality aspects in fish marketing. In the present scenario, where the government is envisioning for establishing dynamic fish marketing system; capacity building and training of the officers are the two key aspects on which focus should be the foremost so that the officers can cope up with the pace of change and move towards developing a fisheries led market extension system.