GNAEC : Greater Noakhali Aquaculture Extension Component

Progress against Outputs (To date January 2005)

GNAEP is currently in its seventh year of operation and had been scheduled to close in June 2005. It is been extended for one year to June 2006 to bring it into line with the wider Danida ASPS. Most of the basic targets of the original extension programme have been achieved, as follows:

Output 1

•	A total of 254 Extension Trainers were trained and in place by the end of 2003, when the three newer NGOs were operating and prior to any phase-out of Extension Trainers from the NGO recruited in 2000. In fact as many as 380 Extension Trainers have been recruited over time, since there has been considerable (up to 40%) drop-out of the persons originally recruited. This has been caused by the recruitment of too highly qualified graduates for lowly paid jobs.
•	Currently 35.6% of the Extension Trainers are female.
•	Orientation training has also been provided to key village leaders such as Imams and teachers, as well as to Department of Agricultural Extension Block Supervisors.
•	A variety of training has been provided to service providers (fry nursers, some of them the farmer participants; fry traders, aquaculture input providers) as persons who might support and consolidate the overall extension effort.
•	Some of these service providers are former Extension Trainers of the first partner NGO, the Community Development Center (CODEC), who began to be phased out in 2004 at the end of their contract. The original Project design had seen this as a key component of the sustainability of the extension strategy on the Mymensingh model, but the potentials have only emerged with the development of prawn culture since 2002 (see below)

Output 2

•	By the end of 2004, over 32,500 farm households (therefore 65,000 beneficiaries) had been trained in almost 2,500 Fish Farmer Groups by the Extension Trainers. It has been estimated that over 90% of the trainees are continuing to practice improved fish culture.
•	In 52% of the FFG member households women are registered as the primary pond operators. Although it is not always clear that the women do play the key role, the proportion of women has increased steadily in the last two years.
•	Average yields of pond culture have increased from a baseline of 1.3 mt per hectare equivalent at the baseline in 2000 to 2.8 mt in 2000-1, through 3.3 mt in 2001-2 to 3.5 mt in 2002-3. This was in the 6 Upazilas operated by CODEC and probably reflects greater experience in the extension trainers over time. The average yield declined to 3.3 mt per hectare equivalent in 2003-4, with the entry of new Upazilas and some flash flood problems in the eastern Upazilas of Chagolnaiya and Parshuram.