The Federal Government of Nigeria says it has licensed 164 vessels to operate on territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
Mr Ime Umoh, the Director, Fisheries Department in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, made this known at the ‘ Second Dialogue with Regional Economic Communities(RECS) implementation of Fisheries Governance Project phase 2 (FISHGOV-2) on Monday in Abuja.
The three-day dialogue is co-hosted by African Union Development Agency, AUDA-NEPAD, and African Union-InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources, AU-IBAR, with the support of European Union, EU.
Umoh said this was one of the achievement recorded by of the Department in its activities saying local production had been boosted.
” For the artisanal, we help them with training, provide inputs, which we do lake enhancement, which we take fingerlings to boost some water bodies that lack fish.
“For aquaculture, we normally establish fish farm estates, where we establish it for youths and women, and also provide them with feed because of the flood we had in 2020 in collaboration with National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA.
“We are intervening in 15 states providing fish feeds, fingerlings, nets, canoe, and that is what is going on presently in Nigeria.”