Proper Fish Handling a Pre-Requisite to Quality Product
1Makeri V.A; Shenge M.T2, Gwar E.T1 & Nyam S.K1
1Department of Fisheries, Akperan Orshi Polytechnic Yandev
2Department of Fisheries, Fidei Polytecnic Gboko.
ABSTRACT
Fish is an extremely perishable food item (Agbon et al; 2002). Soon after death, fish begins to spoil. In the healthy like fish, all the complete biochemical reactions are balanced and the fish is sterile. After death however, irreversible changes set in which results to fish spoilage. The resultant effect is the decomposition of the fish (Akinola et al; 2006). Various factors are responsible for fish spoilage. These factors include: Microbial spoilage, enzymatic spoilage and chemical spoilage. Obviously, the quality
of capture is important at determining the rate of spoilage. The fish health status the presence of parasites, bruises and wounds on the skin and the mode by which the fish is handled determine the quality of fish in others words the caught fish quality, depends on the handling and preservation, the fish received from the hands of the fisher practice after capture affects the degree of spoilage of the post-harvest losses of fish, the researchers have carried out a survey on proper handling of fish using 30 fishermen at river Benue and 30 fish farmers in Gboko to ascertain the level of fish
handling. Results have shown that only 10% out of 30 fish farmers handled the catch as expected. Having done the work, the researcher concluded that it is good to handle fish properly in order to improve its quality and avoid post-harvest losses Keywords: Harvesting, Biochemical reaction, processing, preservation and spoilage
