MARKETING OF CULTURED FISH IN AKOKO-EDO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, EDO STATE

ABSTRACT

Marketing of fish is a major and final production activity required by fish producers to generate revenue and recover their investment. Poor marketing may result in poor returns. This study is aimed at assessing the marketing of cultured fish in Akoko Edo local government area, Edo State, with focus on major marketing agent namely farmers, marketers and consumers. One hundred and twenty well-structured questionnaires split into three group for farmers, marketers and consumers were administered across the local government area. The respondents were randomly selected while the LGA was purposefully selected. The result showed that majority of the respondents across the three groups were dominated by married people (57.1%) with at least secondary education (42.9% ). It also showed that majority of farmers were male (42.9%) and majority of marketers were females (57.1%) and while there were more female consumers than male consumers the gap between the two sexes were not so much. Also, the ages of most of the respondents across the three groups were between 20-40years (57.2%) which is the economic active years. It also showed that most market women have more than 5 years of experience (50.0%) and most of the funding for farmers and marketers are from personal income (41.7%). It also shows that the sold and farmed species is Clarias gariepinus (75.0%) with a few Tilapia species (25.0%) in the midst. The research also provided the information that most marketers prefer to buy fresh live fish (37.5%) and then process it and most farmers sell their fishes fresh (86.7%) and alive and most preferred size of fish by consumers is table sized fish (41.9%), while some farmers engage in the production of fingerlings and table sized fishes (33.3%). Therefore, government should provide small scale fish farmers with financial  incentives training and resources to improve production capacity and meet growing customer demands.