| dc.description.abstract | Aquaculture has shown capacities to
serve as means of livelihood, improve living
standards, provide employment and generate foreign exchange in many countries.
Recent investment in Nigerian aquaculture has been target towards catfish farming.
However,
small
quantity and poor quality fish seeds
are
one of the problems limiting
production. Consequently, Lagos State government introduced improved breeding
and hatchery management practices as a package to fish hatchery operators with the
aim of improving fish seed quantity and quality in the state. Nev
ertheless, the
dissemination of the package has not yielded the desired result. T
his study assessed
the constraints to adoption of improved hatchery management practices among
catfish farmers in Lagos State. With structured questionnaire, 150 catfish farmers,
randomly selected from 12 local government areas spread across Lagos State were
interviewed.
Despite that majority of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed to the
fact that improved hatchery management practices have positive impacts on
breeding, hatching, and survival of fish fry, majority of them affirmed that high cost of
acquisition, high technicality in using the improved management practices as well as
inadequate information about the improved management practices are primary
reasons for non-
adoption of some of the improved practices.
Some of the limitations
faced by the respondents include insufficient
capital, lack of technical expertise to
use the
methods
adequately, non-
availability of inputs, expensive cost of facility
maintenance, poor in
formation dissemination and
insufficient
technical support from
the extension agents and the state government.
Although the adoption of improved
practices has not been total, due to these constraints, the farmers’ knowledge of the
improved hatchery managem
ent practices is broad. There is a
need
for the state
government to subsidize the improved hatchery technologies and inputs, in addition
to making them available to the
farmers;
frequently organize
training workshops, and
motivate more farmers to adopt the
technology by providing credit facilities,
incentives,
and
significant
inputs | en_US |
