Economic evaluation of three on-station fish farming technologies

Abstract

The economic viability of three aquaculture research technologies was examined to determine the operational profitability in Ghana. The first technology was aimed at producing improved tilapia strain fish seed as input for fish farming, while the second dealt with integrating poultry with fish farming for harnessing synergies of waste recycling and feeding cost reduction. The third technology involved polyculture of fish utilizing the natu-ral feed available to different trophic types of fish within a communal culture environment. While the technolo-gies were considered to be socially desirable that could ensure efficiency in use of resources, screening on-station was germane in technology transfer. Undiscounted profit, rate of return, return on annual operation cost, benefit-cost ratio, return to management, and land were adopted as indicators for assessing viability of the tech-nologies and approaches that could improve profitability. At rate of return of 29.8 %, return on annual operation cost of 43.9 %, benefit-cost ratio of 1.7 and return to management and land of 71.2 %, the communal culture technology involving tilapia-mullet-prawn-catfish gave positive indicator values, but the risk of survival of the species in the culture medium must be minimized. Sensitivity analyses of making gains at the same levels of costs for the other two technologies showed that an eight-fold increase of revenue would be required for the poultry-fish integration model to be viable, while a three-fold increase of revenue would be required for the via-bility of fish seed production. Since the three technologies address different challenges of fish farming, all could be recommended for implementation, with the proviso of maximizing incomes from sales of produce, reducing costs of inputs, and minimizing risks.