Evaluation of Fish Farming as a Panacea to Socio Economic Development in Eti-osa Local Government Area, Lagos State
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the Study
The main objective of this study is to Evaluate fish farming as a panacea to socio economic development in Eti-Osa Local Government Area, Lagos State.
The specific objectives are to:
- describe the socio-economic profile of fish farmers in the study area;
- determine the costs and returns structure of fish farming;
- investigate the determinants of yield in fish farming; and
- assess the constraints militating against fish farming.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Concept of Aquaculture
Aquaculture is the rearing of aquatic products under controlled environment. The rearing of fish has become important because fish is a cheap and major source of animal protein consumption for Nigerians, especially natives living in coastal communities. Fishing has become a way of life and the primary occupation of the coastal dwellers that depend on it for their livelihood and subsistence. A gradual decline in capture fisheries production has rapidly widened the gap between the demand and supply of fish, especially coupled with a continually growing population. In Nigeria, fish has been identified as one of the widely distributed animal proteins (Nwabueze, 2010).
Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms, including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants, is often cited as one of the means of efficiently increasing food production in food-deficit countries. In Nigeria, total domestic fish production fluctuated between 562,972 to 524,700 metric tonnes in 1983 to year 2003; while the output of fish farming during this period was 20,476 to 52,000 metric tonnes. Fish farming accounted for between 3.64 and 9.92% of total domestic fish production in Nigeria within this period, while the bulk of production came from artisanal fishing. Although the outlook of aquaculture production is worrisome given the growing demand for fish and the declining yield of natural fish stocks due to over-exploitation, fish farming still holds the greatest potentials to rapidly boost domestic animal protein supply in Nigeria. According to Tobor (1990), there are about 1.75 million hectares of suitable land for aquaculture in Nigeria and 25% of this will yield 656,820 tonnes of fish per year when placed under cultivation. Similarly, Welcome (1979) reported that there about 1.5 million hectares of floodplains and swampland in the Niger Delta hydro-ecological zone which are suitable for fish farming and can produce about 60,000 metric tonnes of fish per year. Furthermore, about 6,450 tonnes of fish can be produced annually from 75,000 hectares of coastal lagoons (Kapetsky, 1981).
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
Data Collection
The data for the study was drawn from primary source with the aid of well structured questionnaires. The questionnaires will be administered on 150 randomly sampled homestead fish farmers within the study area. The questionnaires will be personally administered to obtain data on the socio-economic characteristics such as age, years of fishing experience, marital status e.t.c.
Sampling Techniques and Sampling Size
Multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted for the study. The first stage involved the random selection of 1 out of all the Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the area.. In stage two, however, ten communities will be purposively selected in each of the local governments owing to their high level of involvement in small-scale fish farming. In stage three, ten (10) fish farmers were randomly sampled from each of the selected villages for the study and 60 percent of the total population was included in the sampled for the study. All together, one hundred and twenty fish farmers were sampled from the two selected local government areas in the division.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Introduction
This chapter presents the results of various data analyses carried out in pursuit of the study objectives and their interpretations. These are presented in the following order: the socioeconomic characteristics of the farm households. The latter sections present results of various regression analyses aimed at understanding the effects of the respondent’s socio-economics on their volume of sales.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
In terms of age, evidence on shows that majority (60.0 per cent) of the sampled fish farmers, in the study area have their falling between 31 and 40 years. As much as 3.3 per cent were aged, while youths (30 years or younger) featured less prominently (11.7 per cent) among the farmers. 70.8 per cent of the fish farmers were males: it also shows that majority (92.5 per cent) of the fish farmers were married as expected. Meanwhile, results show that all the fish farmers (100.0 per cent) possess some formal education, which is predominantly at the tertiary level; Majority, 58.3% of the sampled fish farmers are also Muslim by religion with 5-10 years fish farming experience by majority.
The results also show the distribution of the budgetary analysis of fish production in the study areas. It shows that the mean of the total variable cost is positively signed (N4048275.00), the mean of the gross margin is also positive (N2657463.33), total cost is (N4187853.89), total revenue is (N 1390811.66), the net income is also positively signed (N 2797042.22) while the mean of the total fixed cost is (N 139578.89). This implies that the level of profitability of fish farming in the study area is positive, since the above table shows the net income to be positively signed.
Conclusion
From the research being carried out, it was denoted that fish farming in the Local Government Areas tends to be productive regarding their level of participation in the activities. Most of the farmers have access to credit facilities and majority of them use the loan for fish production purposes, as revealed from the findings, most of the fish farmers are confronted with the problem of lack of fund and heavy rainfall.
Recommendations
Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that:
- The major constraint impeding expansion of fish production in the study area was financial problem. Therefore, credit should be made available and accessible to fish farmers at low interest rate by the government and private organizations
- There should be an insurance policy that would protect the farmers against mass loss as a result of disease outbreak, pollution, predation and devastating effect of flooding.
- Government and non-governmental organizations should educate fish farmers on management and solutions to fish farming problems by organizing seminars, conferences, workshop etc.
- Price stability, increased tax for imported fish and fish related products, improved marketing distribution channel should be employed to source marketing problems
- Farmers should be encouraged to form and belong to an association so as to assist each other, to share ideas and solve problems among themselves
- Provision of preservation and processing facilities to combat post harvest loss
- There is need for extension education, training the trainers (i.e. change agents), so that farmers could benefit from innovation or improved technologies that are simple, affordable and divisible.
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