Lack of regulation hinders fish farming in Nigeria

Elepo, whose company is based in Lokoja, is into fish farming, modern bee keeping, grass cutter farming and consultancy services on agricultural matters. He said fish farming is a lucrative business but lack of legislation regulating the activities of fishermen, high cost of feed and lack of access to loan by fish farmers are hindering […]

Elepo, whose company is based in Lokoja, is into fish farming, modern bee keeping, grass cutter farming and consultancy services on agricultural matters. He said fish farming is a lucrative business but lack of legislation regulating the activities of fishermen, high cost of feed and lack of access to loan by fish farmers are hindering the business.
He lamented that excessive and unchecked fishing activities by fishermen are threatening the continued existence of fish as there are no more fishes left in the river. He urged government to regulate the activities of fishermen with a view to saving fishes.
Elepo told Daily Trust that he started fish farming about 16 years ago after graduating from the university and has since then been reaping the gains of fish farming, adding, “When I graduated from the university, I had no intention of working for public or private sector. I had always thought of fish farming. So, after my education, I trained on fish farming.
“I went for training in different places but got certified at the College of Fshery Kanji, Niger state. I specialized in production of fingerlings and their feeds using local materials available in Nigeria from where I started fish farming. I started the fish farming with large plastic containers in Lokoja. I was the first fish farmer in Lokoja that started using such plastic ponds for breeding fish before others joined.
“What I did was to modernize the ponds in a way that it can take about 50 fingerlings up to table level over a period of four months. After I have succeeded in that, I started making fish ponds which I have been using to breed fish. I did not borrow money to start the business; I started with the little capital I was able to raise on my own. Basically, that was how I started,” he said

According to him, In going into fish farming, one needs to have basic knowledge and  orientation of fish farming so as to understand and  know to recognized different species of cat fish because  all fingerlings look like cat fish.
He said there are some fingerlings that cannot grow bigger than 200 millimetres while some can grow bigger than that, adding, “Also one should know the activity of fish while in water because if the fish is not comfortable inside the pond or whatever you are using to breed them, then the business is doomed from the beginning. In the pond system, we have the active pond, floating and re-circulatory method.
“Whichever method a farmer chooses to adopt, it depend on the resources to procure fishes and feeds because feeds take close to 60 percent of the total production cost of fish farming. A bag of feed of 15 kilograms cost between N5,000 and N6,000 depending on the size and location one is purchasing the products. And I usually have about 12,000 fishes growing at different stages in my ponds,” he said.
On profit making, Elepo said, “A kilogram of fish is sold between N600 and N700 in lokoja. So if one spend an average of N350 to produce 1 kilogram of fish and you sell at N600, then by the time you remove the production cost from the N600, you end up making a profit of between N250 to N300. So if you produce 1,000 fish in six months, it them mean you make an average of N250, 000 every six months. Fish business is very lucrative,” he said.
Speaking on the challenges in fish farming, Elepo said, “One of the major challenges of fish farming is feed because most of the feeds are imported and that makes them expensive. If you want to get good result in your fish farming, you have to feed your fish with imported feeds from the first to the fourth months before you can change to local feed,” he said.
He added that the materials for making feeds in Nigeria are very expensive because a typical Nigerian will eat both the meat, tail and bone of fish which are used in making feeds, saying that the white man keeps them and uses them in making feeds for fish.

Another major challenge facing the fish farmer according to Elepo is the lack of effective legislation controlling fish activities in our rivers by fishermen.
“Most of the fishermen use net with small holes and when they go for fishing, they will catch both big and growing fish which makes it difficult to get fish to breed. If you catch small fish that would have grown into big one, then how can we get more fish from our river?
“Now, fish is scarce in our rivers because they have captured almost all of them. Most of the fish in the market now are from the ponds. There should be a law regulating fishing activities. Marketing is also affecting fishing business because if you don’t have good market strategy, you may not succeed in the business,” he said.

Elepo explained that most market women are buying fish on credit and after sales they will not pay the farmer, adding that one has to create a market by either processing the fish into dry one or have a barbecue where fish can be processed for sale.
He said it is not easy for fish farmers to get loans from financial institutions, adding “I have not gotten any loan from any financial institution due to huddles involved. Some of our colleagues who went for the loan could not get because they don’t know anybody in the bank to assist them get the loan.
“All those things you hear them say on radio, television and newspapers on easy access to loans for farmers are mere propaganda and only for public consumption because when you want to get the loan you will not see it. If you don’t know somebody who knows someone that can help you, you will end up pushing papers and at the end, a non farmer would get it,” he said.
He however called on federal government to reduce tax on importation of agricultural products especially those that cannot be sourced locally.
“Also, government should have a source of funding for farmers with a very low interest rate, at least one digit so that many farmers can access the loan,” he said.