Chapter one
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO, 2002) reported that an estimated 840 millionpeople lack adequate access to food; and about 25% ofthese are in sub-Saharan Africa (Illoni, 2007). As the population grows and puts morepressure on natural resources, more people willprobably become food insecure, lacking access tosufficient amount of safe and nutritious food for normalgrowth, development and an active/healthy life(Illoni, 2007). A number of countries in sub-SaharanAfrica are characterized by low agricultural production,widespread economic stagnation, persistent politicalinstability, increasing environmental damage, and severe poverty. Given these situations, it is thereforepertinent to provide the poor and hungry with a low costand readily available strategy to increase foodproduction using less land per caput, and less waterwithout further damage to the environment (Pretty et al.,2003).
Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms,including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants,is often cited as one of the means of efficientlyincreasing food production in food-deficit countries (Inoni, 2007). According to Zohar, Dayan, Galili and Spanier (2001), pisciculture (also called fish farming) is the principal form of aquaculture, while other methods may fall under mariculture. Fish farming is an aspect of aquaculture which involves the cultivation of fishes in ponds, tanks or other chambers from which they cannot escape. A wide range of fish farming does exist including growing of fish in earthen ponds, concrete tanks, cages, pens, run-ways, glass tanks, acrylic tanks, plastic tanks, Race-ways etc. (FAO FishStat Plus 2012).Pisciculture was derived from two words Pisce(s) which means fish(es) and culture which means rearing, raising or breeding of living things. Pisciculture is therefore defined as a branched of animal husbandry that deals with rational deliberate culturing of fish or fishes to a marketable size in a controlled water body (Encyclopedia, 2009). Consequently, there are two main types of pisciculture to be distinguished: (1) the rearing in confinement of young fishes to an edible stage, and (2) the stocking of natural waters with eggs or fry from captured breeders (Encyclopedia, 2009).
InNigeria, total domestic fish production fluctuatedbetween 562,972 to 524,700 metric tonnes in 1983 toyear 2003; while the output of fish farming during thisperiod was 20,476 to 52,000 metric tonnes. Fishfarming accounted for between 3.64 and 9.92% of totaldomestic fish production in Nigeria within this period,while the bulk of production came from artisanal fishing. Although the outlook of aquacultureproduction is worrisome given the growing demand forfish and the declining yield of natural fish stocks due toover-exploitation, fish farming still holds the greatestpotentials to rapidly boost domestic animal proteinsupply in Nigeria. Fish production currently contributes 3.5percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for 0.2% of the total global fish production (Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), 2011).as well as provides direct and indirect employment to over 6million people (Adekoya, 2004); but if optimally explored has the potential as an enterprise to contribute significantly to the possible creation of 30,000 jobs and generation of revenue of US$160 million per annum, which would invariably improve the agricultural sector and boost the Nation’s economy at large (Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, (FMARD), 2013). Fish farming is an integral component of the overallagricultural production system in Lagos State, Nigeria.The terrain of most part of the State is swampyand prone to seasonal flooding. This makes a vastexpanse of land in these areas unsuitable for cropfarming. The prevailing hydrographic conditionstherefore make fish farming a very attractive alternativeproduction to which the abundant land and waterresources in Lagos State can be put (Inoni and Chukwuji,2000).
An efficient method of production is thatwhich utilizes the least quantity of resources in order toproduce a given quantity of output. A productionprocessthat uses more physical resources than an alternativemethod in producing a unit of output is thus said to betechnically inefficient. However, since economicefficiency embodies both technical and allocative efficiencies, once the issues of technical inefficiencyhave been removed the question of choosing betweenthe set of technically efficient alternative methods ofproduction, allocative efficiency, comes to fore.According to Oh and Kim (1980), allocative efficiencyis the ratio between total costs of producing a unit ofoutput using actual factor proportions in a technicallyefficient manner, and total costs of producing a unit ofoutput using optimal factor proportions in a technicallyefficient manner. However, a farm using a technicallyefficient input combination may not be producingoptimally depending on the prevailing factor prices.Thus, the allocatively efficient level of production iswhere the farm operates at the least-cost combination ofinputs. According to Yotopoulos and Lau (1973), a firmis allocatively efficient if it was able to equate the valueof marginal product (MVP) of each resource employedto the unit cost of that resource; in other words, if it maximizes profit. Therefore allocative efficiencymeasure, quantifies how near an enterprise is to usingthe optimal combination of production inputs when thegoal is maximum profit (Richetti and Reis, 2003).
