Analysis of Factors Influencing the Adoption of Charcoal-Powered Processing Kiln by Fish Farmers: Evidence from Nigeria

Fish occupies a strategic position in Nigerian food basket, contributing immensely to the food security of the country. Fisheries provide employment to over 8.6 million people directly while about 19.6 million people are also indirectly depended on this subsector as their means of livelihoods (World Fish, 2018). Nigerian fishing activities are made up of three sources such as artisanal, industrial and aquaculture. Fish is an important source of protein to a large extent and thus provides 40% of the dietary intake of animal protein for average Nigerian.

About 2.7 million metric tons offish annually is required to satisfy the dietary needs of Nigerian citizens. However, the aggregate total domestic fish supply from all sources, both from capture and culture fisheries, is about 0.8 million metric tons per annum thereby creating a deficit of 1.9 million tons to fill the demand-supply gap (Emefiele, 2019) cited in Johnson et al. (2020). The gap between demand and supply has raised Nigeria import billon frozen fish to over $1.2 billion annually (FAO, 2007).

According to Adekoya (2004), fish and fish products constitute more than 60% of the total protein intake in adults especially in rural areas. Fish as food is known to be superior to all terrestrial meats (beef, pork and chicken, etc), rich in animal protein and highly digestible energy.

Fish is suitable for supplementing diets of high carbohydrates contents, good source of thiamine and rich in Omega-3 poly-saturated fatty acids, fat and water soluble vitamins and minerals. It is highly rich in Polyunsaturated Omega III fatty acids, which are important in lowering blood cholesterol level and high blood pressure. It is able to mitigate and alleviate platelet of cholesterol aggregation and various arteriosclerosis conditions in adult populations.

Fish value chain covers production, processing, storage and distribution to the final consumers. Fish processing is an important stage in the handling offish product. One of the major activities in fishery is post-harvest handling of the fish. This stage requires efficient management and when it is not efficiently handled, it results in losses and low returns to the efforts offish processors. This has been the situation in Nigeria over the years.

Despite abundance of on-shelf technologies in our various institutions, fish processors are still making use of traditional methods (drums) for fish smoking which produces fish characterized with poor quality and high content of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) knowing to be dangerous to public health. Smoking of fresh fish is primarily done to preserve it from spoilage and also to prolong the shelf life offish products. There are four major ways of smoking fresh fish namely sun drying, salting, smoking, and refrigeration. In Nigeria, traditional smoking is often done in the open air using fuelwood of different kinds. The sun drying and smoking in the open fire are often characterized with dirt, sand and dust (Bolaji, 2005). Open fire smoking makes smoked fish prone to external contamination and thus extends the length of time spends on fish smoking and sometimes it is destroyed by rain and strong wind (Bomfeh, et al., 2019). This method is not only laborious but also constitutes environmental hazards to the society. The use of traditional techniques take longer drying time and product-quality is difficult to control. Traditional methods of smoking fish can cause eye and skin irritations to fish processors. There are several improved fish processing technologies suggested in the literature, among them include charcoal and gas powered kilns. Both technologies are reported to have very close time range for drying fish and low PAH (Okusanya et al. 2021). However, in the literature, charcoal-powered kiln technique for smoking fish is found to be more likely cost-effective compared to the cost of gas-powered kiln in the study area.

Scientifically, findings showed that several smoking methods have been designed and suggested to be used in order to bring down the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon on smoked fish. PAH recommended limits by European Union are yet to be met in developing countries, Nigeria inclusive. However, the adoption of improved smoking techniques has a lot of challenges due to several perceptions towards these technologies. Perception of cost and profitability associated with the technology, compatibility, and some other socio-cultural constrains preventing fish farmers from using the technologies. Most available studies are related to technical aspects of smoking techniques, but factors constraining the utilization of improved technologies on fish smoking are still grossly inadequate if not lacking, thus this study is conceptualized to fill the knowledge gap. This study therefore seeks to provide answers to the following questions. What are the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents ?; and What are the factors affecting the adoption of charcoal-powered fish smoking? Therefore, the findings from this study would assist government to make the necessary polices that will help accelerate the utilization of modern method of smoking fish.