Event

The Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension will host a seminar entitled “Evaluating the Targeting Strategy of Entrepreneurial Artisan Fishers in Dominica”. This seminar will take place on Friday 20^th March, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. in Room 20, Dudley Huggins Building, Faculty of Science and Agriculture. Graduate student Brent Theophille will be the presenter at this seminar. 

For further information please contact Ms S. Ragbir at (868) 662-2002 Ext. 2088.

The study explores utility-maximizing decision making by artisan fishers in Dominica, within the context of a model for multi-prior portfolio analysis. The problem of the research focuses on determining the nature and efficacy of strategy employed by risk-averse artisan fishers, when seeking to derive positive economic gain from fishing, given the impact of risk. The existing ambiguity limits the understanding of decision functions that comprise targeting strategy and the contribution of normal fishing behaviour to economic gain; the incentive upon which further investment in fisheries is being advised. Accordingly, the analytical approach evaluates maximizing an objective function in net trip revenues through the minimization of variance in the net trip/portfolio returns where risk and risk-aversion impact the decision-making by fishers with respect to targeting of a particular species of fish. The main aim of the research is to derive quantitative evidence that may assist the resource management body of the country in making better decisions for improved resource utilization through a model that reflects utility-maximizing decision-making by artisan fisherfolk.