Comparative Assessment of Fish Processing, Packaging and Marketing Activities in Ibeno and Ikot-abasi Local Government Areas of Akwa-Ibom State, Nigeria

The survey assessed fish production and marketing activities in Ibeno (IB) and Ikot-Abasi (IK) Local Government Areas of Akwa-Ibom State, Nigeria. A purposive sampling was used to select the two local government areas because of the presence of high fishing activities in the areas and random sampling method was also used to select two markets each in the both Local Government Areas. The study was conducted with the aid of well-structured questionnaires which were administered to 180 processors. The results obtained revealed that the fish processors in both local government areas were dominated with females who were married and with primary education. Majority of the respondents fell between the age range of 20-29 years and got their source of finance from friends and relations. The processors got their source of fish for smoking from fishermen and women, had major occupation as fish marketing and fish processing, used mud oven half metal oil drum (IK 60.7%) and firewood (IB 44.6%) for their fish smoking. It was further revealed in this study that they processed fish at home during the day and had a major difficulty in controlling rodents, insects and breakage of fish during storage. Findings also showed that the processors used baskets (IB) and plastic drums (IK) to package their fishes and made highest sales and profit between October-December. However the large family size maintained by most of the fishermen and fish farmers adversely affected their economic growth and standard of living. Adequate provision of credit, social and fishing amenities including fish seeds and transport facilities in addition to keeping their family size small would enhance the socio-economic conditions of the fish processors in these areas. It is worthy to note that fish processing makes an important contribution to household food and financial security in all processing centres.