Investigation of the Personal, Social and Economic Factors Influencing Catfish Farmers Utility in Choosing Pond Types: Implications for Profitability

Abstract

The use of wrong pond types in fish farms has affected profit and this kind of widespread impression could make people quit fish farming if it is not addressed. In this study, investigation of the contributing factors of farmers choice of pond types and profitability in Delta State Nigeria were examined. A multi-stage sampling method was used to carefully choose 180 fish farmers. Data were collected from June to July 2019 using structured questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, multinomial logit model, regression model and one way Anova. The findings showed that majority of respondents were males and were married. The mean age was 44years with household of 5 people. High proportion of the respondents had secondary education with 9 years' experience in fish farming. The mean pond size was 148.44m 2. Majority of them employed earthen ponds in their fishing business. The major reasons for pond type selection were land availability and scale of production. The result further shows that farmers choice of pond types was influenced by cost of feed, labor cost, pond size, output, stocking density and cost of pond construction. The profit of catfish operators has been positively influenced by education of the respondent, experience of the respondent, stocking capacity, pond size and pond types of the respondent. The average profit realized from earthen pond was N61092.55 while average profit of concrete pond and tarpaulin pond operators are N38394.68 and N29753.19 respectively showing that earthen ponds are more profitable than concrete and tarpaulin ponds. Further results of Anova revealed that at 5% level of probability, there was statistically significant profit difference between the different pond types as a whole. There is need to enhance credit accessibility and to subsidize improved production inputs for effective utilization of pond types.