Nigeria’s target of achieving self-sufficiency in fish production has received a boost as Aller Aqua Limited has trained over 1000 catfish and tilapia farmers on proper feed management to boost local production and reduce the country’s annual import bill of N238 billion.
“The training is focused on increasing efficiency and production of fish farmers using efficient fish conversion,” said Dada Folusho, regional sales manager, Aller Aqua Nigeria Limited during one of the training programme at Agege in Lagos recently.
“With this, a catfish farmer with 1,200 pieces of fish can make 24.7 percent profit margins, having three production cycles of four months each and a tilapia farmer with same pieces of fish will have 37.5 percent profits,” Folusho said.
Nigeria’s total annual fish demand is put at 2.7 million metric tons (MT), while the country produces only 800,000 MT, leaving a gap of 1.9 million MT annually, according to data obtained from the country’s agricultural road map.
This yawning gap is filled with fish imports estimated at about N238 billion (US$625m), which erodes Nigeria’s chances of diversification in the face of FX scarcity.
Also, speaking to journalists during the training, Tiamiyu Nurudeen, managing director, Amolese Aquaculture Nigeria Limited said “the essence of this training is that we want farmers to understand better the mechanism of aquaculture; the feeding regime and rate, timing because fish farming is science and that is the mistake a lot of farmers are making thinking it is just a backyard farming.”
“An average fish farmer should keep abreast with knowledge and that is what Aller Aqua is doing today. Farmers need to get more abreast of new technologies and new ideas to be more profitable,” Nurudeen said.
Farmers blamed the failure of the country to tremendously increase its fish production in recent years on the high cost of quality fish feeds as a result of FX volatility which has constrained the importation of feeds, while also hurting the fish farming business.
“The major challenge in a culture today is that the industry is highly dependent on import for its fish feed, which consists test 75 percent of total cost,” said Nurudeen who is also the national vice president Tilapia Aquaculture Developers Association of Nigeria (TADAN).
“Now the prices are high and the margins are smaller because we spend more on fish feeds and this is why smuggling will not stop because it is cheaper,” he added.
The training took place in Ikorodu, Agege and Ibadan.
Josephine Okojie
