Catch Performance and Household Poverty among Artisanal Fisherfolks in Rivers State

The study analyzed the artisanal fishery performance and poverty status of fisher folks in Rivers State, Nigeria. A multi stage random sampling technique was used to select 170 fisher folks from the fishing communities. Primary data were obtained with the aid of structured questionnaire and interview schedule. Descriptive statistics, Net Margin, FGT and Tobit regression models were employed in the analysis of the data. The mean age of the distribution was 39.8 years with catch performance of 26.77kg/hr and efficiency of 305.57%. The total revenue of N64, 205.00 per fisher per month, variable cost and fixed cost are N16, 089.70 and N4, 921.80 respectively. The gross and net margin were calculated to be N48, 115.30 and N43, 193.50 respectively with rate of return on Investment of 2.06. The per capita expenditure per adult equivalent (PCEAE) and poverty line were N2, 445.26 and N1, 630.171 per month respectively. The poverty headcount, depth and severity were 0.8492, 0.455 and 0.2827 respectively. The results of Tobit model show that sigma (δ) was 0.127 (p<0.00). All the included explanatory variables had expected signs which imply that they follow the a priori expectation as regard to poverty status in the study area. However, only secondary dummy, household size, fishing experience, monthly income and labour effort were significant in the model. It is recommended that artisanal fishermen in the study area should be embrace adult education and modern fishing training programmes to improve their understanding of the new fishing methods and technologies and increase their catch performance and Government should assist artisanal fishermen with necessary inputs such as fishing equipment, training, soft loan in order to boost domestic fish supply to the economy.