Assessing the level of awareness regarding shrimps

Abstract

Shrimps are small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (order, Decapoda) with claws on the first two pairs of legs. Uganda has more of the shrimps in the Nile basin countries with 12 species of fresh water crabs and shrimps. To assess the level of awareness regarding shrimps, an online survey was carried out on a group of 120 individuals. A questionnaire was designed to assess how much people knew about shrimps and how people perceive shrimps. This came in after realizing that there is no any study carried out in Uganda about shrimp awareness and perception besides their abundance in the waters of Uganda. The study revealed that people do know shrimps (64.2% of the respondents) but this knowing was not influenced or affected by demographic characteristics as used in the study (age, level of education, occupation, distance from the lake) except a characteristic of gender where we saw that male responsiveness and knowing was higher than that of female respondents represented by a 66.7 %. During the study, it was found out that people perceived or viewed shrimps in different ways. For those who had never dealt with shrimps (66.7%) were not willing to work with them apart from a few and for those who had ever dealt with shrimps (33.3%), many were willing to work with them and could even eat willingly when served to them. They would even recommend them to other people to try them because of their appreciated amazing taste, medicinal values and economic value as they are highly demanded both locally and internationally. The study recommends that people should be sensitized about shrimps and their importance in order to improve their attitude towards them. The study also recommends that MAAIF should provide shrimp seeds to farmers who are will to farm them as starting capital for them. The study recommends that the government of Uganda through MAAIF should teach fisheries personnel techniques of how to rear shrimps who later would teach local farmers.