Journal of Agricultural Science and Practice

The study analyzed traditional fish processing methods among women in Lau Local Government of Taraba State, Nigeria. Structured questionnaires were administered to 80 randomly selected respondents from 113 registered fish processors. Percentages, frequencies and multiple regression analysis were used for the data analysis. The study revealed that most (73.75%) of the respondents were within the age range of 30 to 49 years, 73.75% were married with average size of seven people per house hold.  About 73% of the respondents had formal education with average of 19 years processing experience. More than half (51.25%) of the respondents had income of less than N 30,000 and 90.00% of them had no prior contact with extension agents. 77.50% of the respondents adopted  smoking and 10% fermentation/drying as methods of fish processing. The coefficient of determination (R²) was estimated at 0.974 indicating that 97.4% of the variation was explained by the variables (Age, house hold size and education) included in the model. Smoke pollution, poor transportation network and seasonality of fish were the major problems confronting the respondents. The findings recommended that the fisheries unit of agricultural extension agency and research institutes should device appropriate or improved methods of processing fish locally that will be less hazardous to health and environmentally suitable. Government should engage in rehabilitation of rural feeder roads leading to the processing communities to improve transportation system and reduce cost.