‘We have many new fisheries technologies to offer farmers’

Would you highlight some of the technologies the institute has developed to help farmers overcome some farming challenges?I must tell you, if you look at the history of aqua culture, our institute is the first that developed the breeding of catfish. We were one of those who were involved in cage fish culture. We did […]

Would you highlight some of the technologies the institute has developed to help farmers overcome some farming challenges?
I must tell you, if you look at the history of aqua culture, our institute is the first that developed the breeding of catfish. We were one of those who were involved in cage fish culture. We did a lot of work on it with Shell on all those Niger Delta areas. When people are talking about technologies, fingerling production is not just one technology: you need to build ponds, you need to do water quality testing, and the fingerlings itself.
Apart from that, we are also involved in artisanal fisheries, looking at the productivity of water bodies. We are the first institute to produce the checklist of inland water bodies in Nigeria. So we have a very good record and we’ve drawn up studies to know whether this is productive, or not productive and the rest of it. But because of WAAPP, our emphasis is limited to aqua culture.
I’m sure you must have heard by now of the clupeid, which we have developed. We also have the technology now to transfer them to other water bodies. In early 1992 and 1993, we transferred some clupeid to Tiga Dam in Kano State. Clupeids are very tiny fish which you know, are also called water sardine. So what we do with clupeid now is not just for producing feeds, we use it to enhance primary productivities of the water bodies. Like when you have water bodies that have carnivorous fish, you introduce them and the carnivorous fish wouldn’t be eating tilapia, they will be eating those clupeids and then allow tilapia to grow and multiply. If you go to Tiga now, the type of tilapia we have are so big because those catfish are busy eating the other ones.
Now that we discovered that clupeids can be very good in feed production, we want to introduce them in water bodies where they don’t have clupeid so that farmers can go and be harvesting.
Can clupeid be cultured or commercialised?
The only way you can raise it is in water bodies so you need reservoirs or other water bodies. Once we do the primary studies and see that they have where they can breed, there is no problem; culture does not necessarily mean digging ponds to raise them, but you can in a way really culture them in reservoirs.
How far have some of the technologies developed in your institution gone in Nigeria. Can we really find them in every nook and cranny of the country?
Yes, there is nowhere – even when I was a director of research – there was nowhere we did not do training. We have all male tilapia; we’ve been to all parts of the country – Kano, Port Harcourt, Delta you name it. So our technologies are there. All these issues of ponds, cage culture, and production of feeds have been dealt with. We have even developed a technology for local fish farmers that do not require an extrusion. That is why when people are asking for formula, we say we are not giving you, because once they get it that is it. There is a way that if we formulate a feed, it will float.
We have really developed quite a number of technologies. We have now also developed chemicals for testing water quality, by one of our technologists. Somebody now is interested in it from United Kingdom and we are discussing with them. In fact he has taken some samples of them. We said go and identify a company that will mass produce it and let’s come and sign an agreement on how much the institute will get, because all this issue of patenting once you start it you take another 10 years, you know how this country is. What we are more interested in is royalties.
How significant is the adopted research villages?
With these adopted villages, you introduced whatever you developed to fish farmers. I’m not boasting, come to New Bussa, our institute’s adopted village, you will not hear of armed robbery because the youth are producing fish in tones every day.
You will see people coming to pick the catfish to Onitsha and other parts of the country. The insurgency has affected fish coming from Maiduguri.  You will see how people are converting rice farms to fish farms. So the adopted villages help a lot.
Can a farmer walk into the institute and get whatever technology he or she wants on fisheries?
Let me tell you, we now have a broodstock farm, which we built with the assistance of WAAPP. While we have many technologies to offer farmers including training, I don’t want anybody to be deceived that a small institute in the corner of the country will produce all the fingerlings or other fish species for everybody in the country.
Before WAAPP, we had outreach programmes where if a farmer wants to establish a good fish farm, we go there, train him and teach him how to produce. We have done it for so many farmers. Transporting fingerlings to distant places is not economical. We can send our scientists to the farmer to do it right in their farms.