Socio-economic determinants of small scale fish production in Lokoja Local Government Area of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The objectives of this paper were to identify the socio-economic characteristics of small scale farmers in the study area, determine the input accessibility of the fish farmers, determine the output and income generated from fish production and identify the constraints faced by the fish farmers. A total of six villages were randomly selected from the LGA. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 140 small scale fish farmers from the sampled villages for the study. The data for this study were collected with the aid of interview schedule. This was validated and subjected to reliability test using split-half technique (r = 0.84). Result shows that fish farming is male dominated with only 32.0% of female involvement. Majority (75.7%) of them were members of different associations. Almost 34.0% of the fish farmers had contact with extension agents once in a month, while others had between two to four contacts per month. Majority (71.4%) of the respondents had between 1 and 5 fish ponds which they used for fish production, while 46.4% of the fish farmers had less than 5,000 fingerlings in stock. Result shows that majority of the fish farmers produced less than 10,000 kg of both fresh fish (73.6%) and smoked fish (86.4%). Moreover, 60.0% and 46.4% of the fish farmers generated less than ₦250,000 from fresh fish and smoked fish per annum, respectively. Regression analysis shows that 53.0% of the variations in the output of fish measured in kilogram were explained by the variables included in the model. Thus, the t-value shows that membership of association extension contact, income, fertilizer and number of fingerlings were significant and influences the small scale fish production in the study area. It is recommended that various existing associations should be strengthen and empowered economically by both government and non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, private extension outfits should be revitalized to complement government efforts in the dissemination of improved technologies and capacity building for fish farmers.