Shrimp-Paddy Conflict in the South-West Coastal Region of Bangladesh

Shrimp cultivation is a comparatively new agricultural practice in the south-west coastal region of Bangladesh. The objective of this study is to analyze the costs and returns of shrimp and paddy cultivation for understanding the behavior of the farmers in the south-west coastal region of Bangladesh. This study compares cost and return of shrimp and paddy cultivation through collecting primary data from 60 randomly selected farmers from the study area. The derived economic benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of shrimp production is 1.67 and that of paddy production is 1.36 indicating that shrimp production is more profitable than paddy production from economic viewpoint. However, the BCR of shrimp production decreases to 1.04 while the associated external cost of land degradation is added in cost side. The ratio would further decrease to less than one if other indirect cost items such as health cost, loss in livestock, mangrove destruction and biodiversity losses are considered. Such results signal that shrimp production is not a profitable option from a society viewpoint. The study findings also indicate that cost of shrimp production increases and return from shrimp production decreases over the time period. The paddy farmers in the study area moved towards shrimp farming in the 1980s for getting short-run higher benefits. However, the unfavorable changes in cost and production and lower BCR from society viewpoint explain the recent reverse move of farmers from shrimp cultivation towards paddy production for re-solving shrimp-paddy conflict in the study area. Shrimp expansion led salinity intrusion creates constraints in the move in some cases. An active cooperation of government through enforcing associated rules and regulations might be helpful for the farmers of the south-west coastal region to protect their livelihood and efficiently re-solve the shrimp-paddy conflict