Artisanal fishing household’s production is investigated using stochastic frontier analysis through Cobb-Douglas production function, which incorporates an inefficiency effects model. Descriptive statistics and profitability index were also used to analyzed the data collected. One hundred and twenty eight households were randomly picked through multistage techniques in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Primary data were chosen using structured questionnaire and interview schedule. Results indicates that greater part of respondents were males with an average age of 42 years who were married with household size of 6 persons. Very many of them did not belong to cooperative society with high educational level. The result indicates that labour, baits and capital inputs were significantly related to output. The average technical efficiency was 73%. This means that the households can still improve their efficiency level by 27%. The structure of production suggests that the returns to scale was 0.9584. The estimated gamma parameter was 0.9423 and was significant at 5% level. Access to credit, membership of cooperative society and fishing experience had an inverse relationship with technical inefficiency while age, fishing distance, gender, number of trips and oil spill had a direct relationship with inefficiency. Artisanal fishing was found to be profitable with a net farm income of N135261.21 and a benefit cost ratio (BCR) of N1.20k. The major constraint to artisanal fishing was pollution. Therefore, the study calls for policies that increases the security of oil pipelines in order to stem the tide of oil spillage and invariably water pollution.

B a a Teki da Na k Ke a i e i e i a af da C ea i e C Li a (h ://c ea i ec . g/ ice e /b -nc/4.0/) ka a da a a . Teki da 2021

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This study investigates aged operators' willingness to quit operations and youths' inclusion in shrimp value chain. Primary data were obtained using structured questionnaire from randomly selected 120 shrimp operators. Descriptive and inferential statistical tools were used to analyze collected data. Demographic result suggests that majority (82.50%) of the operators were female and (52.50%) acquired secondary education. The finding shows that aged people (70.83%) dominated shrimp value chain with 29.17% inclusion rate for young actors. Result of hypothesis testing shows that the average income realized by youths is significantly higher than the net income realized aged. About 48% of the aged operators indicated willingness to quit shrimp harvesting in the future due to the drudgery involved. Incentives such as grants, loans and aquaculture-specific education should be given to the youth to encourage more participation. Youths should form important component of government policy and programmes for the development of shrimp industry in Nigeria.

This study examined financial benefits of broiler chicken farm operators in Delta State, Nigeria. Data were collected from 168 randomly selected broiler farm operators with the aid of structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, cost and return analysis and regression analysis. The result showed that 58.3% of the farmers were between age brackets of 31-40 years with 82% of them male and 76.2% were married with 67.9% having household size of 6-10 persons. About 96.4% of the broiler chicken farmers were literate with 66.7% of them having between 11-15 years of experience. The average net profit, gross margin and average net profit per bird as well as return per naira invested were N928720, N1034606, N 1254.82 and N 2.89 respectively. This implies that broiler production is profitable. Poultry droppings/litters were also essential by-products that generate enough income to the broiler chicken farmers. The result of the regression model showed that cost of chicks, cost of feed, cost medicine and veterinary cost positively influenced profit while labour cost, water supply cost , transportation cost and mortality rate had inverse relationship with profit. High cost of feeds, bird mortality and inadequate capital were the major constraints associated with broiler chicken production. It is recommended that if these aforementioned constraints are tackled will help boost broiler chicken production in the study area.