Abstract

The study compared technical efficiency in integrated and non-integrated aquaculture farms in Rivers State, Nigeria. The integrated aquaculture farms produced feeds and fingerlings without processing the fish while the non-integrated aquaculture farms buy feeds and fingerlings from independent suppliers. Purposive sampling was used for the 37 integrated aquaculture farms while multi-stage technique was used to sample the 119 non-integrated aquaculture farms. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, annual depreciation and stochastic frontier model. The two production systems of integrated and non-integrated aquaculture production were efficient given the least efficiency of a farm as 0.50. The integrated aquaculture farms had 62% of the farms with indices of 0.96-1.00 as efficient, while the non-integrated aquaculture farms had 61% of the farms with indices of 0.93-1.00 as efficient; meaning that the integrated aquaculture production is a more efficient system of natural resource management in aquaculture production. However, for this rate of efficiency to be sustained; current technical and price information is needed by the integrated aquaculture farmers which can only be disseminated by qualified and adequate extension workers.