THE NEXUS BETWEEN GOOD AQUACULTURE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES, SURVIVAL RATE OF FINGERLINGS, AND THE EFFICIENCY OF FISH FARMERS IN GHANA

Abstract

While aquaculture development is considered an important growth point for the Ghanaian economy, an understanding of the practices that contribute to its productivity growth is less understood in the Ghanaian context. To be specific, the role of good aquaculture management practices (GAMPs) in improving survival rate, technical and profit efficiencies in aquaculture production in Ghana has received less attention. This study employed data from the Tilapia Seed Project and developed three measures of good aquaculture management practices to examine their effects on survival rate, technical and profit efficiencies. Afterward, the determinants of GAMPs were analyzed using Poisson regression and multiple linear regression models. Then, a fractional regression model was used to determine the effect of the GAMPs on the survival rate of fingerlings, while the stochastic frontier analysis was used to examine the effect of GAMPs on the technical and profit efficiencies in aquaculture production. The findings indicate that Ghanaian aquaculture farmers moderately engage in good management practices and that having access to credit, technical advice, in-house training and asset ownership are the major factors with positive influence on the uptake of GAMPs. With the survival rate of fingerlings, the higher the cost of chemicals used, the higher the survival rate of the fingerlings. The results further show that GAMPs as well as technical advice and feed usage significantly reduce the levels of technical inefficiencies among aquaculture farmers. GAMPs also reduce the level of profit inefficiency among the farmers. Based on the findings, the study recommends that credit be made available to farmers as this can help in the utilization of GAMPs and subsequently increase survival rate, technical and profit efficiencies. It is also important that extension advice from the Fisheries Commission be scaled up and enhanced as it particularly increases the uptake of GAMPs.