Socioeconomic Factors Responsible for Livelihood Improvement of Agar (Aquilaria malaccensis. roxb) Oil Producers of Maulvibazar District, Bangladesh

Aims: The study was accomplished for assessing the impact of agar oil production on livelihood improvement of its producers. Study Design: This article is a socioeconomic study and placed on empirical analysis. It conducted the socioeconomic factors which had an impact on the livelihood improvement of agar oil producers. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Barlekha Upazilla of Maulvibazar District of Bangladesh. The study period was mid-June to mid-September/2017. Methodology: The relevant data were collected from the agar oil producers of Maulvibazar District, Bangladesh. Household having at least one factory were included for the study. A total of 60 households among 180 household were selected as sample. Field survey data were collected through face to face interviewing of the respondents using a structured questionnaire through simple random sampling. After cleaning and correcting the data Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) were used for analyzing the data. Results: The average family size was found 10.17 (small: 10%; medium: 45% and large: 45%) and majority (63.3%) belongs to the graduation level, meaning having 16.0 years of education. The results of the regression model revealed that amount of annual income, credit access of household, membership of an organization had the positive impact and an increasing the age of household head had a negative effect on livelihood improvement. Instead of having different constraints, the major problems faced by the producers in agar oil production were lack of industrial gas connection and lack of modern laboratory. Conclusion: In order to enrich the livelihood improvement of agar oil producer’s industrial gas connection, modern laboratory and better credit services should be well executed by different government and non-government organization.