How good policy will boost fish production in Nigeria

Professionals have reiterated that the programme for improved regional fishery governance in West Africa will help Nigeria to have easy access to international funds for investments in the aquaculture sub-sector which will enhance regulations.

Also, the Minister of Agriculture, Sabo Nanaso, said that fishermen contribute over 90 per cent of the fish Nigerians consume, but they were highly unregulated, calling for policy interventions.

Mr Amadou Tall, a player in the fishery industry, disclosed this during a conference on potentialities of non-state actors in the fisheries and aquaculture development in West Africa.He said: “Regulation challenges are not specific to Nigeria. It is the same all over the world. The small-scale fisheries sector in the developing countries do not have enough means; they are highly illiterate, they have a lot of difficulties, and so we have to help them organise.

“But it is the bottom-to-top approach; we listen to them, discuss what we have as experiences and if they like what we give them, they take it.”
Nanaso, represented by the Deputy Director of Fisheries, Mrs Bola Kupolati, said there was need to formalise a body that would assist the government in the area of capacity building and financing local fishermen.The conference had a representative from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other stakeholders.