The Role of Fishery Sub-Sector to Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria

 
Our last post focused on measuring the performance of the agriculture sector in Nigeria. This article series will fall-short of achieving its main objective of appraising the contributory role of the selected livestock sub-sectors to sustainable economic development in Nigeria if it fails to analyze the role of individual sub-sector separately.

We are therefore, going to be discussing extensively in this post and series of articles that shall follow the individual role of the four livestock sub-sectors starting with the fishery sub-sector then poultry, piggery and finally cattle production sub-sector contributory role in sustaining Nigeria economy. The system of production, challenges and possible solutions to addressing these challenges for increase productivity in the sub-sectors will also be discussed.

Fish culture system in Nigeria can be broadly classified into two stages; these include the hatchery stage and the pond stage. The hatchery stage is the stage where fingerlings and juveniles are produced. Fisheries hatchery is a complex structure consisting of overhead tanks and series of tanks set up in such a way that allow free water flowing through the tanks where fish eggs are incubated, hatched, and the hatchlings fed and raised to fingerlings. These hatcheries are either flow-through with constant natural aeration or re-circulation systems where the water is re-circled using an automated re-cycling machine.

The pond stage is the actual table-size fish production phase in fish culture. This phase involves the growing of the fingerlings/juveniles to table size fishes in different water holding systems. These systems are the earthen ponds; the earthen ponds as the name implies is facilitated by the earth movement resulting in a water holding depression, concrete ponds, these are similar to earthen ponds but the walls are either made of concrete or blocks filled with cement mortar. Other water holding systems include fibre glass tanks which are made up of fibre glasses and cages made up of netting enclosure suspended in a natural water body, cages can be constructed of bamboo, wooden or metal frames supported on floating drums.

We also have the two basically similar and very close to the tanks systems, the intensive re-circulation systems equipped with bio filter to purify the pond water for reuse, this system make it possible to stock up to 200-400 fishes per square meters efficiently depending on the level of management; and the flow-through systems which are not equipped with a bio filter, in this system, the water flows in and it is allowed to drain out without re-circulation.

Water could be introduced in these different water holding systems through rainfall, borehole, and reservoir or through seepage. After careful preparation (Liming, fertilizing) the fishes are stocked and fed to table size (1-1.2kg in four months with good feeding) for the market.

The role of fishery sub-sector to sustainable economic development in Nigeria cannot be over emphasized. Nigeria is highly endowed with both fresh and marine fishery resources. It is generally believed that if these resources are rationally managed and exploited, the country can attain self-sufficiency in fish production.

There are estimated 12,478,818 hectares of inland water bodies made up of reservoirs, lakes, rivers, ponds and perennial swamps and some 741,509 ha of brackish waters, most of which are suitable for aquaculture. At present only about 5,476 ha of these waters are utilized for fish culture.

Fishery sub-sector is an important sub-sector in the Nigerian economy. The total contribution of fishery sub-sector to the Nigerian economy is put at N126,417 billion gross output with a capitalization of N78,530billion. Two types of markets in fishery business have been identified in the country to include industrial markets; where fishing inputs such as crafts, gears, outboard engines, life buoys, etc. are sold; and consumer markets where fish and fish products are offered for sale to consumers.

Fishing and marketing of fish and fish products are very lucrative ventures that contribute to food security, poverty alleviation in the Nigerian economy. The trade in fishes in Nigeria has two dimensions; the first is the domestic trade in fishes which include domestically produced fishes and secondly the external trade interactions involving imported fishes consumed within the country.

With an estimated population of 170 million and an estimated fish demand of 1.6 million metric tons of which local supply was estimated to be only about 640,000 metric tons all pointed out and confirmed the potential economic viability and profitability of the sub-sector in Nigeria. No doubt, the sub-sector possesses the capability of closing the unemployment and insufficient protein intake gap in Nigeria, the diversity in culturable fish species in Nigeria, favourable environment/climate and ability of fishery culture investment to yield between 30-100% returns on investment in some successful cases make the sub-sector a significant catalyst to achieving and sustaining economic development in Nigeria. 

The sub-sector is highly export driven with clear identification of several major unofficial collection points (Nsidung, Badagry and Onitsha e.t.c) of processed fishes for the purpose of exporting to different African countries such as Egypt, Cameroon, Tunisia and Togo. There have been a steady increase trend of fish output in Nigeria to meet the high demand, the fishery sub-sector contribution to Gross Domestic Product growth rate at 2010 constant basic prices from 2009 through 2013 are 6.2%, 6.0%, 8.3%, 7.8% and 9.0%, this simply means that the fishery sub-sector‘s annual growth rate within the period did not go below 6%.

The story of fish culture in Nigeria is indeed the story of catfish; the population of catfish aquaculture alone rose from 21,372 in 2001 to 253,898 in 2012, and thus, making catfish farming the main fish farming specie in Nigeria. Cat fish production alone contributes about 90.8% (by weight) of total fish output from aquaculture in Nigeria.

The important role of fishery culture in sustaining economic development in Nigeria can be seen also from Onunkwo, (2007) in reviewing various studies done in integrated fish farming for sustainable agriculture.

The common integrated fish farming systems revealed from the reviewed studies include fish cum poultry, fish cum piggery, and fish cum crop (vegetable) production especially in rural areas at subsistence level. It was found in a study by Asala (1994), that 46% of 254 fish farmers sampled in the country practice one form of integrated fish farming or the other indicating the gain and popular acceptance of the practice.

It was revealed in the research that the economic benefits of integrated fish farming such as fish cum pig farming can be from 28%-30% economic advantage over normal pig farming; for example, Ansa and Jiya, (2000) were reported to have recorded an impressive productivity in the culture of tilapia using pig manure as source of fertilizer and feed.

The ecological efficiency of integrated fish farming therefore, include manure loading as substitute for reasonable quantity of feed ingredients, nutrient cycling as the use of organic waste for fish feeding serve the dual purpose of waste disposal management and reduction in cost of production. The increase in biological productivity of planktons which forms the main fish food results in increase output.

Other economic importance of integrated fish farming include, it contribution to food security and sufficiency for example, in many parts of Nigeria, fish constitute about 40% protein intake and up to 80% in the riverine areas, empowerment of many families, it viability, reliability, profitability and potentiality to ensure regular source of income as labour are engaged throughout the year.

Challenges and possible solutions to fish production in Nigeria shall be discussed here next. Challenges to production of fish in Nigeria among other factors ranges from shortage of trained manpower, lack of knowledge on profitability of aquaculture as an industry, limited availability of fund (or capital), inadequate data base on the biology and ecological requirements of endemic fish species with culturable potentials, insufficient data on production and management techniques, high cost of feed, poaching and lack of rational aquaculture development planning should be properly addressed and attended to.

Other factors militating against the development of aquaculture in Nigeria needing urgent attention include lack of functional hatcheries and poor quality seeds which subsequently lead to stunted growth in fingerlings, and poor survival rate (high mortality rate) consequently leading to poor return on investment.

The high rate of declining output in the demand-supply deficit and somewhat saturated sector in terms of productivity and fisher-folks employed in the sector can be solved by preserving capture fishes through sound management practices, expanding the scope of both subsistence and commercial fish farming in other to increase the fish output in the country.

The strategic importance of developing the sub-sector in solving the dilemma of unemployment of artisan fisher-folks and insufficient fisheries products supply resulting from population increase, adoption of unsustainable fishing practices and environmental pollution in Nigeria cannot be over emphasized.

We shall in our next article be focusing on the poultry sub-sector.

Cite as follows: Dan-Abu Michael Ngbede, (2016). Appraisal of the Role of Cattle, Poultry, Piggery and Fishery Sub-Sectors to Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria: 1982-2014. A research project submitted to the department of Economics, University of Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Bachelor of Science (B. Sc) in Economics.