Fish Farming In An Emerging Economy: A Case Study Of North Central, Nigeria

Fish farming is not merely an aspect of agriculture but that which provides the most widespread and the fastest growing animal food with no cultural and religious belief that place a taboo on its consumption, thereby constitute a great contributory factor to reduction in global food insecurity and unemployment. Hence, this study investigated the profitability of fish farming in the study area. A total of 120 fish farmers were randomly selected and interviewed using structured questionnaire. Data collected was subjected to descriptive statistics and Cost/Returns Analysis. Capture fisheries is the most popular form of fish farming in the area with men (70.00%) dominating the fishery activities. The annual income of farmers in the area fell within the range of N51000 N 100000/year. The findings also revealed that a Total Cost of N1, 581,784 was incurred in the enterprise while Total Revenue of N2, 582,616.00/year was realized. Return per Naira invested was found to be N1.63 with a Net Return of 1,000,832/year and a Gross Margin was N3, 855,400 and the Gross Ratio was 0.61 (less than one). All these are indicators of a profitable enterprise, therefore there is need to exploit the entrepreneurial development potentials that fish farming avails taking into cognizance the reduction of the constraints to fish farming in the study area.