Lagos State government, on Thursday, said it will increase its fish production by at least 60,000 metric tonnes to bridge the huge deficit in order to meet the state’s demand for fish in the state.
A total of 8,844 registered fishermen in 164 Fishermen Cooperative Societies live in 325 fishing communities across the state, while 3,600 fish farmers and 26,500 processors had been identified in the Value Chain.
Besides, the state is also home to 60 per cent of the nation’s commercial activities mixed with fashion and entertainment.
The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, made this promise at a news conference to unveil the Lagos Seafood Festival scheduled to hold on Sunday, December 13, 2020, at the Muri Okunola Park, Lagos.
According to the commissioner, the state currently produces about 174,000 metric tonnes of fish annually while the current demand stood at over 400,000 metric tonnes, hence the need to address the huge deficit of over 226,000metric tonnes.
Olusanya, however, said that the additional 60,000 metric tonnes of fish would include both fingerlings and table size production to what already existed in Lagos.
The target in terms of production currently is to increase our production. The demand for fish in Lagos is well over 400,000 metric tonnes and what we are producing as a state is roughly at about 174,000 metric tonnes so there is a huge deficit of about 226,000 metric tonnes.
In terms of the target, we just ended our five-year master plan roadmap strategy document which will be unveiled by Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the plan is to cover the deficit by a certain percentage.
Already, the Lagos Aquaculture Center for Excellence, which was mentioned during Mr Governor’s budget reading, states that for the project alone, we should be adding over 60,000 metric tonnes of fish, both fingerlings and table size production to what exists already in Lagos.
Outside of what we want to do with our fisher-folks in terms of them increasing production and aquaculture producers as well in terms of the support, we will like to give to them and create additional farm estates.
We should be able to increase our fish production by at least 50,000 to 60,000 metric tonnes in the year 2021, the commissioner said.