ABSTRACT

 The study was designed to examine the Evaluation of resource use efficiency among catfish farmers in Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers state, Nigeria It specifically looked at the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers which was described, the cost, returns, and revenue of catfish farm enterprise in the area were evaluated, the production function of the catfish farmers was estimated, the resource use efficiency of the fish farmers were estimated, and the constraints associated with catfish production in the area were identified. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 60 randomly selected catfish farmers. Data analyses were carried out with the use of statistical tools like frequency, mean, percentages, 4-point Likert scale and multiple regression models. Primary data collected were analyzed using frequencies, means, and the Ordinary Least Squares multiple regression analysis technique. The results indicated that socioeconomic factors such as age, sex, education, farming experience, household size and marital status, have significant effect on the productivity in the study area. Toe costs, returns, and revenue of catfish farm enterprise were determined. The result from the multiple regression to estimate the production function of the catfish farmers showed that land cost, feed cost, and pond size were positively significant at 1%, 1 %, and 5% respectively, while fertilizer use was negatively significant at 1%. The resource use efficiency showed that feed, labour, fertilizer and capital were over utilized. The major constraints associated with catfish production in the study area was high cost of feed. Recommendations to be made is that farmers in the area should learn how to make use of supplementary feeds to cut short their expenses on feed cost and also the government should make credit facilities and extension services to be more accessible to farmers in the area.