FARMERS’ USE OF MOBILE PHONE FOR COMMERCIAL FISH FARMING IN PANCHAGARH DISTRICT

Abstract

The key concern of this study was to explore the mobile phone usage behavior of fish farmers for commercial fish farming. Four unions of Atwari and Boda upazila under Panchagarh district were randomly selected as the locale of the study. One hundred (100) farmers were selected as the sample for this study. Data for this study were collected through personal interviews by the researcher herself from July 31 to August 31, 2021. Data were analyzed by Multiple Regression Analysis using SPSS 23.0. Age, level of education, farming experience, annual family income, fish farm size, communication exposure, fisheries training received, usefulness of using ICT, ICT selfefficacy, use of mobile phone were the selected variables for the study. Highest (45%)

proportion of the fish farmers frequently used mobile phones for their commercial fish

farming.

Others were often, occasional, rare or not at all users of mobile phone for commercial fish farming. Considering the inferential statistics, education, communication exposure, ICT self-efficacy had positive and significant contributions to mobile phone use, constituting 70.5% (R 2 = 0.705) of the variance. Thus, the study concludes with the recommendation to enable a favorable environment to promote mobile phones in receiving fisheries production and its market information.