FISON laments lack of fisheries policy, outdated laws…Says fish importation killing local production

This position was disclosed in a communiqué issued by FISON at the end of its 29th Annual Conference with the theme: “Fisheries Productivity and Environmental Sustainability: Challenges of Achieving the National Transformation Agenda,” which held recently in Makurdi, Benue State.Participants at the 2014 conference drawn from the academia, fish farmers, fish processors, fish marketers, feed […]

This position was disclosed in a communiqué issued by FISON at the end of its 29th Annual Conference with the theme: “Fisheries Productivity and Environmental Sustainability: Challenges of Achieving the National Transformation Agenda,” which held recently in Makurdi, Benue State.
Participants at the 2014 conference drawn from the academia, fish farmers, fish processors, fish marketers, feed producers, civil servants, non-governmental organisations and students maintained that lack of policy, outdated laws and importation of fish were major barriers to sustainable development of the fisheries sector of the economy.
FISON expressed concern with the policy of ban on importation of fish and the subsequent granting of licences for importation of same, saying that the action has contradicted government’s import substitution policy.
The society, therefore, recommended the complete stoppage of imported farmed fish which is “now flooding our markets and killing local production and consequently the economy.”  
While urging the government to quickly formulate a national fisheries policy to ensure best practices in fisheries, FISON also called for the immediate enactment of the Fisheries Act 2014, which is a review and update of Inland and Sea Fisheries decrees of 1992, sponsored by the European Commission in conjunction with stakeholders in the sector.
The communiqué read in part: “Members assessed the Agricultural Transformation Action Plan of the federal government’s transformation agenda and observed that FISON had not been engaged fully in the Agricultural Transformation Agenda currently going on in Nigeria.”  
FISON, therefore, “urged government to fully involve professional bodies, civil societies and producer organisations identified as “major catalysts in the achievement of sustainable sector reform policies worldwide.”
The society which expressed concern with the slow pace of government action in the sector, also called on the government “once more, as a matter of urgency, to implement the National Aquaculture Development Programme (NADP), the Aquaculture Value Chain Programme and the Artisanal Fisheries Value Chain Project, just as it’s being done in other commodities under the ministry of agriculture’s mandate.”
Meanwhile, a new FISON President, Dr. Olajide Ayinla, was elected alongside other executive members at the just concluded 2014 conference.
He is Dr. Ayinla who took over from Dr. Abba Y. Abdullah, the society’s President for four years.