Farm marks massive harvest of catfish, brood stock

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

A farm that specializes in both crop and fish farming, Red Arrow Industrial and Allied Services Limited, has marked a massive harvest of catfish, brood stock from last year’s farming season.

The farm which is located in Kubwa, Abuja, marked the harvest on Thursday.

The General Manager of the farm, Mrs Okafor Perpetual Nkechi, stated that this is the first harvest after she assumed the position of the farm’s General Manager.

Speaking in an interview with Daily Times, she expressed gratitude for the harvest and sales that were recorded.

She said, ‘’This is my first harvest after I took over the position of General manager. I am happy that the quality matters a lot to the consumers.’’

She said that the markets are also available for sales as she has also registered with the Department of Fisheries under the Federal Capital Development Territory.

Okafor, added that with the support of the Chief executive officer of the Company, Prof Nike Eze, buyers have also been patronizing the fish farm.

‘’As I assumed office, I visited FCDA, where I registered with the Department of Fisheries. The FCDA secretariat assured me that they will link me up with more markets so that I can produce as many as I can.’’

Two staff of FCDA were also present to monitor the harvest and assist technically.

Describing her farm, she said, ‘’ We are deeply into agriculture and crop farming. In fish farming, we rear catfish in natural environments. We have our fishes weighing about 3- 4kg and above.

For the crop, we are into the cultivation of maize, rice, yam, onions, vegetable, pepper and orange fleshed sweet potato. We are about introducing ginger to the farm.

‘’In this farm, we have the hatchery, we have 4 earthen ponds and we have both concrete and plastic formats. We also do our fingerlings by ourselves and we introduce them to the pond after they mature. We take very good care of them to avoid disease outbreak.

‘’We also have machines where the CEO got from the Ministry of Agriculture, where we engage into processing the fish.’’

Speaking on her challenges, she lamented on theft and smuggling of fishes, urging the government to provide security for farmers.