The federal government of Nigeria is currently in discussions with the World Bank to secure financing for fish farmers in the country to improve productivity and plug a fish importation spree that costs the nation up to $1 billion annually.
Adegboyega Oyetola, minister of Marine and Blue Economy confirmed this during a high-level consultative meeting with fisheries cooperative groups in the Abuja, the nation’s capital, this week.
“Nigeria must chart a new course towards self-sufficiency in fish production,” Oyetola said.
The minister says in addition to the World Bank’s financial support for fish farmers, it will collaborate with the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) to help beneficiaries access affordable and accessible insurance coverage.
Despite being the second largest aquaculture producer in Africa, with about 1.07 million metric tons of fish realised annually, Nigeria is a net importer of fish, draining billions from its foreign reserves to import it.
This, according to the Central Bank, is to fill a demand gap of 2.5 million metric tons.
“Besides the economic considerations, the health implications of importing frozen aquatic products that may be compromised, and may have adverse effects on the health of consumers in Nigeria,” the CBN had warned.
WorldFish, a food and nutrition think tank, reports that there are over 1.5 million fishers in Nigeria operating over 94 million hectares of production area.
The sector contributes over 2 percent to GDP, but morale is low.
“With almost six in ten households experiencing food insecurity, Nigeria spends $1 billion a year on fish imports,” it reported.
The federal government says it will support fishers and fish farmers through policy, technical support, and financial inclusion, noting that start-up grants and other empowerment initiatives are “already in the pipeline.”
“We will scale up domestic fish production, reduce dependency on imports, and reposition the sector for sustainable growth,” he promised.
Only recently, the federal government and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) unveiled a N200 million support initiative to boost aquaculture in Nigeria to help meet the country’s annual fish demand.
Under the project, 40 fish farmers would collect between N2.5 million and N5 million to upscale their fish farming business and production.
“It will help the farmers to access required finance to upscale their fish farming business and cover the deficit of fish production in the country,” said Dominique Kouacou, the FAO representative for Nigeria.
But despite government efforts, a wide gap still exists between demand for fish and the domestic supply.
Data from Volza on fish exports to Nigeria market from Chile shows that between 2023 and 2024, volume rose by 100 percent.
This is in addition to imports from Norway, a country with only 10 percent of Nigeria’s aquaculture workforce pool, but is highly mechanised and data-driven.
Wellington Omoragbon, the director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at the ministry, encouraged the adoption of enterprise-driven models to enhance productivity and attract funding during the discussion.
Stakeholders say the sector’s potential is stymied by “overfishing, environmental degradation, lack of access to affordable finance, post-harvest losses, inadequate cold storage infrastructure, poor transportation and market linkages, multiple taxation by local government authorities, and the rising cost of imported fish feed, and low youth involvement.”
Oyetola also acknowledged the importance of youth participation, which he said is “vital for food production but also a strategic solution to reducing unemployment.”
This was before he said his office is in talks with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to replicate the successful but expensive ‘cage culture’ aquaculture model at the Oyan Dam in other parts of the country, which involves the use of floating mesh enclosures in open water.
“Timely and long overdue,” was how stakeholders described the initiative in hopes for actionable results.
