Fish farmer's access to information communication media: A gender based comparative study in a selected village of Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper reports gender based comparative study of fish farmers’ access to important Information Communication Media (ICM). The study was conducted in a selected village of a renowned fish producing district named Chandpur in Bangladesh. A structured interview schedule was used to interview 66 randomly selected fish farmers of which 33 were male and the rest 33 female. The findings of the study confirmed that male farmers have comparatively more access to radio, television, news paper and cell phone. Lamentably, farmers- irrespective of gender- had almost no access to computer and internet. Results of t test represented that male and female farmers differ significantly in terms of ownership and access to ICM where male farmers were placed in a better position. Correlation coefficient mirrored that among the eight selected variables family farm size, availability, and ownership of ICM had significant positive relationship with farmer’s access to ICM. Stepwise multiple regressions revealed that family farm size and availability of ICM described 32.2% variation in farmers’ access to ICM.