Acceso usuarios
O.A. Olopade
This study was conducted to assess the socioeconomic characteristic and profitability of small scale fish processing activities around Asejire dam of Oyo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaires from all forty one women fish processors in the three fishing villages ground Asejire dam. Descriptive statistics and budgetary analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings from the study revealed that majority of fish processors were middle age (65.9%) and they are married (85.4%).A low level of education was observed among the respondents as 51.2% had no formal education. The study also revealed that most of fish processors (75.6%) had fish processing experience of 6-15 years, about 48.9% of the women involved in the fish processing inherited the business from their family while 36.6% of the respondents were employed to do the job. Commonly processed fish species in the study area were Clarias gariepinus (26.9%), Gymnarchus niloticus (22.5%), Mormyrus spp.(19.9%), Chrysichthys spp. (17.9%)and Tilapia spp.(12.8%). All the fish processors used simple traditional facilities such as cut-away empty oil drum and firewood for their fish smoking. The major occupational hazards reported by the respondents were skin rashes, redness or swelling of the eye. Personal savings formed the main capital invested on the business and the average net income per week from fish smoking by the women fish processors was N 35,750.00 while the gross margin was N 94, 270.73 per week. (N= Naira, Nigeria currency) The gross margin and net income per week have positive value indicating that fish smoking in the study area is profitable generally. Some recommendations were made on how to improve small scale processing activities in the study area.
