The National Fish Association of Nigeria (NFAN), has lamented the long period of neglect of the fisheries industry while appealing to the federal government to extend its intervention programs to the fishery sub-sector to boost fish production in the country.
The association made this known in Abuja when its leaders visited the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammad Abubakar, adding that the quest for government intervention was prompted by the necessity to boost fish production to meet local demand and promote exports.
Fish as an essential source of food provides a massive market for fish farmers in Nigeria, depending on the type of fish farming, ranging from fresh live catfish in plastic buckets to frozen fish, roasted fish, dried fish, and many more.
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The national president of the association, Ladan Aliyu, used the opportunity of the visit to stress the need to create a special funding scheme in the fishery value chain as a grant or loan with a low interest rate and requested for the establishment of integrated fish processing centers across the six geo-political zones of the country as a pilot to mitigate post-harvest losses.
“We are determined to accelerate local production from the current 1.1 million metric tonnes to meet the annual national consumption requirement of 3.5 million metric tonnes which will translate to self-sufficiency,” he said.
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The Minister, on his own, described fish as very important in the agricultural sector of the economy, while promising the assistance of the government towards improving businesses across the entire value chain of the sub-sector.
He also gave assurance that he would look into the demand of the association to explore possible areas of cooperation towards ensuring robust fish production in the country.
