Determinants of Productivity among Catfish Farmers in Niger State, Nigeria

This study was conducted to investigate the determinants of productivity among catfish farmers in Niger State, Nigeria. Borgu Local Government Area was purposively selected because catfish farming is largely practiced in the area. Within the area, data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaires administered randomly to 120 fish farmers using the two-stage random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics, Total Factor Productivity Analysis and Ordinary Least Square Regression Model were used to isolate the factors that affect fish farmers’ productivity in the area. Majority of the farmers (93.33%) were males; between ages of 41-60 years (72.5%); married (85.84%); with household size of 1 to 6 (74.17%) and had secondary education (74.17%). Most of the respondents stocked their fish in ponds with sizes ranging from 101M2 to 150M2 (40.83%) or 151M2 to 200M2 (39.17%). More so, 69.17% of the respondents’ ponds were hired / leased and only 14.17% of them funded their production basically with loans. 55% of them combined personal savings and loans to fund the production whereas the rest 37 (30.83%) made use of only personal savings. The result showed that only 6 (5%) of the respondents had Total Factor Productivity (TFP)2. The result of Double Log Production Function showed that the coefficients of pond size (per 10M2) and quantity of feed (per 0.1 tons) were statistically significant at 1% p>1, while that of farming experience was significant at 5% (p>5), all with positive coefficients. The adjusted R-squared of 0.8241 explained the coefficient of variation of the catfish farmers’ productivity model. It is recommended that farmers in the study area should be provided with more irrigation facilities in order to provide sustainable impoundment for more ponds as well as cheap / subsidized feed, and adequate training / extension education that could compensate for low level of experience among majority of them