COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF NIGERIAN AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE CORPORATION (NAIC) PARTICIPANTS AND NON-PARTICIPANTS FISH FARMERS IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Insurance services play crucial role in ensuring the continuity of agricultural businesses in Nigeria. This study compared the production characteristics of fish farmers participating in NAIC and the non-participants in Ogun State. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic and production characteristics of NAIC participant and non-participant fish farmers, identify the mode of insurance adopted, identify the constraints facing NAIC participants, and identify the problems facing fish farming in Ogun State. Multistage sampling procedure was used to sample 89 fish farmers who were participants and non-participants of NAIC from five purposively selected fishing communities because NAIC has been found to be active in those communities. Data were collected with two different interview guides for NAIC participants and non-participant fish farmers. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics. Results indicated that the mean ages were 47.36±8.36 years and 41.25±5.64 years for NAIC participants and non-participants respectively. About 63.3% and 28.6% of the NAIC participants operated at medium and small scales of production respectively while equal proportion (47.5%) of the non-participants of NAIC operated at medium and small scales of production. Majority (91.8% and 95.0%) of the NAIC participants and non-participants were practicing monoculture respectively. The highest proportions of the NAIC participant fish farmers considered delay in indemnity payment (49.0%), and rigorous procedures in claim settlement (42.9%) as very serious constraints to insuring fish farms. Chi-square revealed that category of fish farmers has significant associations (at p<0.05) with mode of land acquisition (χ2 = 5.461, df = 2) and sources of water used in fish farming. It was concluded that NAIC has the potential to reduce the problems facing fish farmers in their day to day production activities.