Commercial fish farming is rapidly becoming
an economically successful venture across
the globe.

Fish farming is profitable and an excellent
investment if, like any other business, it’s
planned carefully and managed efficiently.
Like many other forms of agribusiness, it takes
experience to realise good returns.


However, many investors enter the industry
with insufficient capital and training,
expecting overnight break-even, and then
manage their business like a hobby farm.
Many of their designs are inappropriate to
their particular species and local climate and
advice is taken from people not directly
associated with aquaculture.


One of the newest and most rapidly
developing part of agriculture is that of
growing animals in water. This science is
called aquaculture. Many of the foods we eat
were grown in the water. The amount of fish
and seafood eaten by Nigerians is increasing
each year.


According to experts in the health sector,
eating fish is nutritious and makes a good
addition to the diet. It is high in protein and
low in calories. The fat content is lower than
that of red meat, and it helps prevent health
problems. As people become more health
conscious, the demand for fish and seafood
will increase.


This is the more reason people must invest in
fish farming. Nigeria requires about 2.6
million metric tonnes of fish annually to supply
the dietary requirement of its citizens.
Daily Sun learnt that aggregate domestic fish
supply is less than 0.7 million metric tonnes
per annum. Consequently, approximately
N98.5 billion is expended annually to augment
the shortfall. This means Nigeria has heavily
relied on importation to meet its needs.


Before now, most of the fish sold in the
markets were caught from the wild. The
ocean simply cannot sustain enough fish to
meet the demand. To meet the demand, fish
farms came into production. Fish are very
efficient farm animals. This means that a
pound of weight can be put on these animals
with less feed than other agricultural animals.
By far the most important food fish grown in
Nigeria is the catfish. These are raised in all
parts of the country because they are fresh-
water fish. Catfish are different from most
other fish. They have smooth skin instead of
scales. They are meaty and have a mild
flavour. Also, catfish fits well into farming
operations because they are hardy and
tolerate relatively low oxygen content in the
water.


The production of catfish begins with the
breeding process. Through a system called
selective breeding, superior fish are used to
provide eggs for hatching. Factors such as
growth rate and meatiness of the fish are
used to determine, which fish are superior. In
the future, fish farming will be about
innovation, efficiency and sustainability.


The President of Catfish Association of
Nigeria (AFAN) once told Daily Sun that fish
farming is profitable and that he trained all his
children from fish farming business both
abroad and in Nigeria. There was a case of a
former 300 level Business Administration
student of University of Abuja, Abdullah Al-
hamza, who makes a net profit of about N45
million annually in fish farming. These people
are successful because they obtained the right
breed and pay attention to details.


However, breed improvement is important in
obtaining advanced and high yielding catfish.
The main purpose of breed improvement is to
introduce a positive characteristic into a local
breed and take advantage of the observed
improvement in performance of the progeny
above that of either parent-hybrid vigour.
Catfish has many different species namely,
hetero branchus, clarias gariepinus, hetero
clarias, etc.


Speaking with Daily Sun, the Managing
Director/Chief Executive Officer of Jovana
Integrated Farms, Prince Arinze Onebunne,
said it’s important for farmers to lay more
emphasis on how to produce quality and fast
growing fish because many producers who put
their money in fish farming failed because of
poor quality of the procured breed and
insufficient knowledge.


He added: “So look before you leap so that
you don’t burn your fingers. I have seen
farmers who don’t even know the fish breed
in their pond. Farming with the right fish breed
will guarantee profitability.


“Fish breeding objectives should focus as
follows: To breed fish brood stock with high
fertility that, when combined with good
management inputs, easily deliver thousands
of fries, fingerlings and juveniles. To breed
catfish that is hardy and display above
average disease resistance with minimal
animal health inputs.”


He said before considering aquaculture as a
business, much research on requirements
should be done. He said the research should
include marketing, stocking, feeding, water
management, grading, harvesting, transport,
appropriate fish species, materials and capital
investments needed.


According to him, the aim of every fish farmer
is to breed a fish to one kg body weight or
more in the shortest possible time, usually
between four to five months if properly done.
He explained that unit prices for table sized is
between N500 and N600 per kg at the farm
gate, N950 and N1,000 at the retail outlet,
and N1,500 and N1,800 in the restaurants
depending on the size.


He said one gets more profit if operating a
market outlet to cut off shylock middlemen,
hinting that in all fish farms, the largest
operating cost is feed. He said the advice
here is that “you should get the right quality of
food for your fish in order to achieve good
yield. Therefore, you don’t have to depend
solely on expensive imported feed, since one
can learn to produce local cheap feed.”
He maintained that people find it difficult to
get the fast growing species of fish, adding
that at Jovana Farms “we have quality
fingerlings you can start your fish farming
business with.”


He said, “our breeds are functional, hardy and
an economic asset for majority of our
customers. Good hatching abilities
significantly contribute to profitability in fish
farming. Hardiness and disease resistance
reduce your input costs and contribute to
profitability.


“Ignorance perpetuates failure and constant
loss. I have seen farmers recording losses in
their farms as a result of factors they could
have changed. Therefore, people need to go
for training before venturing into fish farming.
Some people who started the business
without the right species of fish or wit¡hout
training have already shut down for lack of
appropriate knowledge.”

Source: http://sunnewsonline.com/fish-farmers-can-earn-huge-income-with-right-species/