A Professor of Fisheries(Aquaculture) at the Lagos State University Ojo, Fatai Gbolahan Owodeinde has decried poor funding of fish production in Nigeria, particularly catfish, stressing the need for urgent intervention of both Federal Government and State Governments through provision of the required financial support for farmers to enable them adopt to the latest farming technologies, so as to enhance production and make the country to stop depending on imported frozen fishes whose prices are out of reach of most families
Owodeinde who made the call on Tuesday while deliverying the 93rd inaugural lecture of the university titled 'The Crawling-Slippery Gold In Production Systems:The Core of Aquaculture in Nigeria', inside the Buba Marwa Auditorium on the Ojo main campus of the institution, also emphasized the need to focus on the development of advanced breeding technologies to develop improved strains and high-quality fingerlings to reduce the shortage of fingerlings
The don who was presenting the third inaugural lecture from the Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Science of the university, said "efforts must be made to constantly arrange regular training programme on basic fish husbandry including feeding, stocking, disease management and water quality monitoring to help fish farmers run their farms successfully "
The Professor of Fisheries (Aquaculture) concluded his Inaugural lecture with a seven-point recommendations including the need for the government to set up research centres to investigate and research into the use of plant ingredients with high protein content in catfish diet in an effort to replace expensive ingredients,such as fishmeal in aquafeeds
He also recommended an increase in number of Fish Hatcheries saying "the number of Fish Hatcheries in the country should be increased considerably by government for supply of good quality fingerlings to the catfish farmers. Universities and Research Centres in the country should be empowered to supply fingerlings to farmers
Owodeinde called on the State Governments to establish cooperative societies among the catfish farmers for distribution of the much-needed inputs such as feed ingredients, hormones, water quality test kits amongst others to boost production
Pix: Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Prof.Adenike Boyo who represented Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello as Chairman of the inaugural lecture
"It is a known fact that catfish production in Nigeria is mainly carried out in extensive and semi-intensive systems, such as earthen ponds and homestead ponds . Only few percentages of the catfish farmers utilize intensive culture systems. Catfish production by recirculating aquaculture systems is hardly practiced in Nigeria due to erratic power supply. Poorly constructed ponds by farmers have been responsible for low productivity, farmers should endeavour to consult aquaculture expert when constructing their ponds ", he further recommended
The professor equally recommended that the State Governments should intensify the activities of Extension Services, which he identified as one of the most critical supporting structures needed by small-scale and large-scale farmers to succeed in catfish farming while calling for a process to make farmers have easy access to funding from financial institutions
"Fish culturists in the country should go into culturing of other species like Heterotis niloticus, Gymnachus niloticus, Oreochromis niloticus, Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus , Lates niloticus, Tilapia species etc. Those restaurants fish pepper soup goers and fish farmers that have been clamouring and challenging the Research and Fisheries Institutions on the need for the introduction of other culturable fish species will now have a good taste of other species ", he concluded
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