Adaptation of New Technologies by Fish Farmers in South East, Nigeria
Abstract
Adaptation of new technologies like intensive system of fish culture, processing of fish using modified drum ovum as well as other new technologies were studied in the South East Nigeria. Data collection for this study came from primary and secondary data. The primary data was generated through field survey using well-structured questionnaires as a major research instrument. The secondary data on the other hand were obtained through relevant literature ranging from textbooks, journals, articles, periodicals, seminar papers and proceedings. The result evinced that fish farmers in the entire south east used mainly intensive system of farming and less of extensive system of farming. Modified drum ovum is the most popular processing method preferred by all the fish farmers in the entire five south east states of Nigeria while choker kiln is the least. This can be attributed to its availability and affordability. The study recommends government support towards fish farming activities in the entire five South Eastern States of Nigeria. The farmers are encouraged to form cooperative societies or groups to gain easy access to credit facilities, they should also as a matter of urgency reorganize their various state Agricultural Development Programmes and recruit young fishery graduate that can be deployed in their state local government areas as well as providing financial assistance to these fish farmers through loans, subsidies in the form of feed, fish fingerlings, processing units etc. and organized special trainings in on-farm feed formulation, hatchery, fish processing, marketing, fish pond management and maintenance.
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Introduction
The government research institutions and the universities have made effort in developing improved strategies and technologies so as to increase production to meet the demand of the country and even export. These technologies are new improved ideas, methods, practices, innovations and inputs which supersede the ones previously in use. It also provides the means of achieving a sustainable increase in fish farm productivity and consequently leading to an improved living standard of the people as stated by Ifejika and Ayanda (2014). But according to Bolorundu (2016) the level of adoption of these technologies by the fish farmers is very low. This is due to the combination of various constraints among which are faulty aquaculture policies, institutional framework and unfavourable socio-economic environment.
The adoption of new strategies and technologies by fish farmers is very important for aquaculture. For quite sometimes, a lot of fishery technologies had been introduced by research institutes, state and federal Ministries of Agriculture and other related organizations concerned with fishery innovations, but the response of the farmers had been negligible. It has been noted that people do not just adopt a technology because it is available to them. In their submission, Berdgue and Eswbar (2017) stated that even when the technologies are available and appropriate, some constraints tends to exert influence on their decision to adopt or not. For instance, agricultural development project and farming skill acquisition centres in the state has for long been assisting fish farmers on how to develop fish farming and to increase production so as to meet the increasing demand of animal protein using the modern recommended fish farming technologies. To this effect, various training programmes were conducted toward achieving these objectives but less attention is given to assessing their level of adoption and problems faced in production. Thus it becomes necessary to study the effect of socio-economic and new technologies on fish farmers in South Eastern, Nigeria.
Conclusion
Result from respondents showed that the entire government of southeast do not support towards aquaculture improvement as there is no government support noticed during this study. There were no extension services from government, no loan facilities, no training, etc. Most of the fish farmers are just car but their fish farming activities through self-help and family support.