author(s)
Vijayakumar S, Muttappa Khavi, Vijay Atnur and Rajanna KB

abstract
In the Vijayapur district, the fish farming is being done by the Fisheries cooperatives societies. In this context it is needed to assess the socio-economic status of these fish cultivators in the district to increase fish production. In this view, the study was carried out on Socio-economic status of fishery co-operatives societies during the year 2018-019 in Vijayapur district of Karnataka State. Socio-economic Characteristics of the respondents indicated that the majority of the fishermen (43.33%) were aged 30- 40 years followed by 40 years (41.67%) and 18-30 years (15%). With regard to educational level, a majority (around 51%) of the fishermen had primary education followed by illiterate (37.50%), secondary education (16.67%) and college education (3.33%). As many as 54.16 per cent respondents belonged to the families of medium size (5-7 members) followed by 25.00 per cent of small size (< 4 members) and 20.83 per cent of large size (>7 members). A majority (54.16%) of the fishermen main occupation is fisheries followed by Agriculture (29.16%), Business (12.50%) and other allied activities (4.16%). Out of 120 respondents, a very large proportion of them (91.66%) possessed dry land and a meagre 8.33 per cent had irrigated lands. With regard to annual income, 26.66 per cent of the respondents had an annual family income of less than 1 lakh, followed by 45.83 per cent had an family income ranging from 1,00,000-1,50,000 per annum and 27.50 per cent had family income of more than 2,00,000 per annum.