author(s)
V Durai, M Alagappan and M Venkatesan

abstract
The present study was taken up to carry out the techno-economic analysis of the shrimp farming practices in the coastal districts of Tamilnadu. Efforts were made to study the socio-personal characters of aquafarmers, farm details, technical details, component wise cost of shrimp farming and economics of shrimp farming. The study revealed that 45.33 % shrimp farmers belonged to middle age group, 44.67 % were educated up to higher secondary level, 78.67 % of the farmers were engaged in aquaculture alone for their livelihood and 48.67 % respondents had farming experience between 5-10 years. Majority of the respondents (82 %) belonged to the marginal (54.67 %) and small (27.33 %) category of farmers. The results indicate that feed (42.94 %), electricity (10.10 %), medicines (8.97 %) and seed (8.26%) were the major costs in shrimp farming activity. Shrimp farmers earned a net profit of 11.47 lakh/ha with BCR of 1.85. On a whole Shrimp farming in coastal districts of Tamilnadu was observed to be economically viable.