Artisanal Fishers' Accessibility To Fishery Information In Coastal Communities of Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

This study assessed artisanal fishers' access to fishery information in coastal communities of Southwest, Nigeria. A total of 214 artisanal fishers were selected using a multistage sampling procedure. Data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, percentages, frequency, Logit regression model, chi – square and analysis of variance. Findings revealed that 38.3% of the respondents were between the ages of 30 and 40 years, 37.4% had 11-20 years of fishing experience with the fishery information needs being met through indigenous knowledge (98.6%). Furthermore, artisanal fishers were mostly accessible to fishery information pertaining to appropriate mesh size (x = 1.86), use of scale (x = 1.84) and fishing gear weight (x = 1.73). Age of fishers, number of years spent in school, number of years spent in community and fishing trip covered in a week were the major determinants of accessibility to fishery information. Furthermore, a positive relationship existed between the sources of information and accessibility by fishers. Also, a significant difference existed in the artisanal fishers' access to fishery information across the study locations. It was therefore recommended that good road network be put in place in the fishing communities and extension messages packaged in form of mobile phone short message services for dissemination to the fishers in their local languages.