A few days ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations brought farmers, breeders and other stakeholders who have been very active in Nigeria’s catfish industry to look at major issues in the catfish value chain.
At the FAO-FISH4ACP farmed African catfish value chain validation meeting in Abuja, farmers, breeders and other actors took turns to point out major issues affecting the business and how the industry is threatened by diminishing catfish genetic resources, lack of industry proper regulatory mechanism, lack of a breeding programme, indiscriminate mixing of genetic resources and host of other issues.
Nigeria is the world’ largest producer of catfish, one of the most commercially important freshwater fish species in Africa. Catfish is the most popular fish on the local market. There is also a substantial trade in smoked fish to neighbouring countries and Nigerians in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
The FAO statistics showed that the country’s aquaculture production grew from 22,000 tonnes in 1999 to over 300,000 in 2017.
The industry today is worth N261.8 billion, according to an estimate from the FAO-FISH4ACP project seeking to help farmers with improve access to key export markets and enhance productivity…