Reeling in Hope: Can Fishery Credit Really Improve Food Expenditure Status for Poor Fish Farming Communities in Rural Bangladesh?

Abstract

he fish farming communities in Bangladesh often find themselves trapped in poverty due to limited resources and low living standards. Many of these communities face financial constraints, struggling to secure credit from formal financial institutions. This compels them toturn to informal lending sources with unfavorable terms and conditions. To address this challenge, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have taken the initiative to provide credit facilities to these fish farming communities. In this study, we employed the Simple Random Sampling (SRS) technique to select 385 fish farmers from the Khulna district who had received credit support from NGOs. The Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique was then applied to evaluate the impact of fishery credit on the household food expenditure of the sampled fish farmers. Contrary to existing literature suggesting that access to fisheries credit improves food security, our empirical findings present a different perspective. The Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) study identifiedtwo factors influencing the food purchasing capacity of fish farmers: the value of non-land assets and the proximity of NGOs' branch offices to the fish farmers' dwellings. To enhance the food security status of underprivileged fish farming communities, it is recommended to focus on transferring assets and establishing NGO offices in close proximity to villages. These measures can significantly contribute to improving the food expenditure capacity of these communities.