1.1 BACKGROUND
In the autumn of 1987 Ulf Wijkstrom, at the request of the Aquaculture for Local Community Development Programme (ALCOM), visited Zambia to design a socio-economic survey of fish farmers in cooperation with Programme staff. The survey was given two purposes: first, to report on the status of production including quantities produced, likely future production and identification of problem areas, and, second, to describe in social and economic terms the fish farmer and his reasons for engaging in, or disengaging from, fish culture. The assisgnment and its results are described in the report: “Fish farmers in rural communities. Design of a Socio-economic Survey. Report on consultancy: 25 August – 16 September 1987” (FI:GCP/INT/436/SWE.2).
A pilot survey was proposed to test the design. It was carried out in the Northern Province of Zambia from the 6th to the 21st of October 1987. The pilot survey was intended to establish whether or not the survey would give the results it was designed to provide. Simultaneously information would be provided on fish farming in the Northern Province. The data from the pilot survey were entered on a data base management programme operated on a personal computer and analysed by Ulf Wijkstrom and Hans Aase in Lusaka during the second half of February 1988.
1.2 PURPOSE OF REPORT
This report presents the information about fish farming and fish farmers in the Northern Province that has been obtained as a result of the pilot survey. The validity of the information can be tested by comparing it with results of future ALCOM surveys of Zambian fish farmers. If carried out, such comparisons will be the subject of separate reports. A separate report contains recommendations for modifications to the questionnaires and to the survey methodology. (Wijkstrom, U.N. 1989. A socio-economic survey of fish farmers in rural communities, FAO, FI:GCP/INT/436/SWE.2, Rome, 1988).
1.3 CONTENT
The information in the report makes it possible for the reader to link the conclusions to the survey data. It does this by incorporating: (i) questionnaires used, (ii) the findings of the survey (write-up of the tabulated survey results) and (iii) an analysis based on the write-up. As most readers will not find it necessary to read through the tabulated survey results, or even the findings, the report presents the above information in the reverse order: the analysis and conclusions appear before findings, and the questionnaires terminate the report.
