ABUJA: Professor of Fisheries, Martins Antekhai has said the fisheries sector is heading for a complete turnover with the blue revolution plan as multinational companies respond to government’s call to join the campaign to reduce the N125 billion annual fish import bill.
Antekhai, who is of the Department of Fisheries, Lagos State University, said the decision of fisheries multinationals to cut down on imports and embrace aquaculture will play a big role in increasing national fish production, thereby creating more jobs for Nigerians.
He said a lot of investors are going to tap into the vast unutilised land and inland water resources to address the shortage of quality fish seeds, adding that it will give a boost to the sector.
While the approach is going to deliver increased profitability in the long run, the don said reducing importation on the other hand will lead to the development of a virile fish export industry.
Already, Antekhai added that the level of fish consumption is big enough to support aquaculture.
Its Director of Production, Mr. Yashpal Jain said the firm is going into local production in a bid to reduce fish imports for which the company has been involved.
Jain said the pilot phase of the project is located in Iwo, where it already had a poultry project in the past, but added that for the aquaculture scheme, additional 25 acres of land had to be secured.
Overall, two large earthen ponds with the dimension of 100m x 80m, six of 100m x 40m and four nursing ponds of 80m x 25m are expected when the pilot fish farm infrastructure is completed.
For Tilapia, he said though cages in which they are kept are expensive and usually imported, the company would source and fabricate locally such number as would be needed in the course of establishing the farms.
Chief Executive Officer, Raju Santani said Triton Group, which came into business in the country in 1995 owns a two-million catfish fingerling capacity hatchery in Ikeja, Lagos State from where it sourced the stock for the Iwo project.
Santani said about $65million is planned for investment in catfish and tilapia production in the next five years to complement efforts of government to grow the local fisheries sector and create more job opportunities in Nigeria.
For instance, Oyo, Ogun, Kwara and Ekiti states have been approached with applications, for working relationship that would release water bodies like in the various Water Basins and dams for fisheries activities.
The Tilapia to be farmed is specially improved breed, the Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT), which he said are getting wider acceptability worldwide.
