Demand for aquaculture development: perspectives from Bangladesh for improved planning Madan M. Dey 1 , Md F. Alam 2 and Manik L. Bose 3 1 Aquaculture Economics and Marketing, Aquaculture ⁄ Fisheries Center, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Pine Bluff, AR, USA 2 Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia 3 Centre for Environmental Management and Participatory Development, HB-150, Sector-III, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, India Introduction Aquaculture is an important fisheries subsector in Bangla- desh and plays a significant role in providing Bangladesh with nutrition, income, livelihood and foreign exchange. Fish (broadly defined as living aquatic resources) has long been the main source of protein in Bangladesh. Fish is also an important source of vitamins and micronutri- ents for the poor in Bangladesh (Thilsted et al. 1997). Bangladeshis, like most Asians, consume rice as their sta- ple and supplement it with substantial amounts of vegeta- bles, tubers and pulses, and reasonable amounts of animal protein, mainly fish and meat. In Bangladesh, two tradi- tional sayings reveal the preferred foods of the people. One is the old Bengali proverb masse-bhatee Bangali (rice and fish makes a Bengali), and the other is dal-bhat, which refers to a meal of rice and pulses, considered the poor-man’s meat. As the per capita consumption of pulses declined sharply from 1991 ⁄ 1992 to 2005, depen- dency on fish increased (BBS 2003, 2007). With popula- tion and demand for fish, including export demand, rising, expansion in the supply of fish to maintain food security has emerged as a priority concern. The aquaculture sector provides livelihoods and income to the vast majority of the poor in Bangladesh. Most Ban- gladeshi poor live in rural areas with very limited employ- ment opportunities. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the National Fisheries Strategy indicated that income- generating opportunities for rural households are most promising in the fisheries sector (PC 2005; DoF 2006). It is estimated that 73% of rural households are involved in some type of freshwater aquaculture on floodplains throughout the country (Mazid 1999). Aquaculture has the potential to provide new employment opportunities in rural areas by increasing both self-employment and demand for hired labour (Karim et al. 2006). The fish trade is a significant source of foreign currency earnings for Bangladesh and delivers benefits at both Correspondence Madan M. Dey, Aquaculture Economics and Marketing, Aquaculture ⁄ Fisheries Center, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, 1200 N University Drive, Mail slot 4912 Pine Bluff, AR 71601, USA. Email: mdey@uaex.edu Received 5 January 2009; accepted 27 June 2009. Abstract Recently there has been a paradigm shift in the focus of aquaculture planning from a top-down to a demand-driven approach. Demand-driven planning for aquaculture development emphasizes that aquaculture development must meet the needs and priorities of stakeholders, and requires processing vast amounts of information ranging from opinions and verbalized needs from primary stakeholders to quantitative data on demand from various stakeholders. How- ever, such an approach is rarely adopted in aquaculture development. In this review, the demand for aquaculture in Bangladesh from different stakeholders, based on an extensive literature review supplemented with an analysis of pri- mary and secondary data, is presented. The analysis shows that gaps persist between the fish yields obtained at research stations and in farmers’ fields and that inefficiency exists among aquaculture operators in Bangladesh. Fish farm- ers need better technology and enabling environments to reduce yield losses and to improve efficiency in production. Aquaculture planners and policymak- ers also need to consider demand from different consumer groups at home and abroad. Key words: aquaculture planning, Bangladesh, demand-driven development, fish consumption and trade, yield gap. Reviews in Aquaculture (2010) 2, 16–32 doi: 10.1111/j.1753-5131.2010.01020.x 16 ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd