Sea farming and its contribution to poverty alleviation: An empirical tudy from Indonesia

Sea farming is a new concept to improve the fishermen´s welfare while conserving the marine ecosystem through mariculture activity. This study aims to examine the factors influencing participation of sea farming project and its impacts on household income and poverty. The benefits and constraints of the project are also discussed. The probit model shows that education, occupation, household size, and organization member are significant factors in influencing household decision to participate in the project. Contrary to the stated hypothesis, the study shows that all significant factors are reducing the probability of one person to participate in the project. The OLS regression shows that sea farming participation, organization member, and mobile phone ownership variables are having positive and significant relationship to the total income. The results proves the hypothesis that sea farming has positive impacts in increasing household income and reducing poverty. Sea farming is perceived as a beneficial program for the local community particularly in participants´ point of view. However, sea farming still faced some constraints, for example, water quality and diseases attack. In summary, sea farming has a good concept to provide economic activity for rural coastal community though it requires improvement in several aspects.