World Aquaculture Magazine - March 2021

WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • MARCH 2021 39 countries (Boyd et al. 2018) and total operational cost is spent across the culture cycle, following the selected stocking pattern (Table 2) and other management (Table 4). Low farm operational costs in Bangladesh are probably due to the very extensive nature of farming, the culture species and exclusion of the value of land and the farmer’s own labor. In addition to the relatively low operational cost, farmers have developed a unique credit arrangement with retail input sellers (Table 5) to make the farm operation affordable. According to the FGD responses, survival of PLs in the first batch of stocking is higher and they often get rapid growth among 10 percent of stocked PLs. By selling this fast-growing batch, they repay 50 percent of the total credit incurred and continue purchasing inputs for operation of the farm through the remainder of the culture period. Before winter, they conduct a complete harvest, pay all credits to retailers and also invest in farmmaintenance during the dry period, which includes clearing the bottom and repairing dikes. With such a market interaction, smallholder farmers can start their shrimp farming by investing only US$ 100 and can maintain their main livelihood, ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 4 0 ) TABLE 2. Three major multiple stocking patterns (PL/ m 2 ). Pa t t e rn Feb Mar Apr May J un J u l Aug Sep Oc t To t a l Pr opo r t i on o f f arms us i ng pa t t e rn (%) FM NM FM NM FM NM FM NM FM NM FM NM FM NM FM NM FM 1 2 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 12.5 60 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 16 30 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 18 10 FM = f u l l moon , NM = new moon . TABLE 3. Simplified costs and returns from extensive shrimp farms 1 , excluding farmer’s own labor. I t ems US$/f a rm Operational cost 988 Post-larvae 654 Inputs (except seed) 2 262 Hired labor 72 Revenue (shrimp sales) 1544 1 Av e rage f arm s i z e i s 0.73 ha . 2 I npu t s i nc l ude l ime , f e r t i l i z e r , d i s i n f e c t an t s , med i c i ne , ne t ( f o r f enc i ng ) , har v e s t i ng t rap s , ga t e f o r wa t e r e x change . TABLE 4. Monthly distribution of the proportion of input (except seed) cost and hired labor involvement throughout the annual farming cycle. Feb Mar Apr May J un J u l Aug Sep Oc t De c - J an To t a l Input (except seed) cost (%) 25 10 5 15 15 15 5 5 5 100 Hired labor (man-days) 1 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 4 8 20 TABLE 5. Initial investment to start the farm operation at the beginning of the culture cycle I n i t i a l I t em t o t a l Fa rme r ’ s Cr e d i t b y t he Fa rme r ’ s Cr e d i t f a c i l i t y o p e ra t i ona l c o s t (US$) c on t r i bu t i on (%) r e t a i l e r (%) i n v e s tmen t (US$) (US$) Seed 93 50 50 46.5 46.5 Other inputs 66 75 25 49.5 16.5 Hired labor 4 100 0 4 0 Total 163 100 63