The awareness of food safety and hygiene among the dried fish processors at Chalan Beel area of Bangladesh

Abstract

The present study was conducted in five subdistrict (Singra, Atrai, Chatmohar, Vangura, and Tarash) under four districts of Chalan Beel area of Bangladesh from January 2015 toMarch 2016 to evaluate the status of awareness among dried fish processors with respect to hygiene and sanitation issues enrolling 60 processors who were subjected to the questionnaire interviews. Among the respondents, 49%, 20%, and 3% of the respondents belonged to the primary, secondary, and above SSC level, respectively, and others were illiterate. Most of the processors (65%) adopted fish drying as primary occupation. Monthly income of majority of the processors (55%) varied between 5001 and 10000 BDT. About 60% processors received training. Among the drying sites, 55% were lacking toilet facility and 62% processors were habituated to practice partial washing and dressing whereas 35% were not in practice. In addition, 32% and 28% of the respondents used Beel (deeper areas of floodplain similar to lake) and river water, respectively, while only 7% of respondents used tube well water and 68.3% were not used to washing hand with soap or ash. Moreover, though 65% of processors made knowledgeable response regarding harmful effect of insecticide application, however, in contrast to their perception, 51.7% of processors used insecticide. Only 21.7% of processors were likely to maintain government office linkage and 61.7% of respondents expressed positive attitude regarding cooperative formation. Such study has implications for evaluating status of awareness in terms of prevailing knowledge, attitude, and practices of dried fish processors.