FG to accelerate achievement of food, nutrition security – Lokpobiri

The Federal Government has laid emphasis on accelerating achievement of food and nutrition security in the country with a view to generate employment and create wealth through fishery.

The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri stated this on Tuesday during the stakeholder’s workshop on the World Fish Nigeria Research Program at the Transcorp Hotel, Abuja.

Lokpobiri said: “The vision of the present administration is to grow Nigeria’s Agricultural sector including Fisheries and Aquaculture to achieve a hunger-free nation through Agriculture that drives income growth, accelerate achievement of food and nutrition security, generate employment and create wealth for millions of practitioners in the industry”.

He revealed that the Ministry has directed all fish importers to go into backward integration through commercial aquaculture (Pond and Cage Culture) saying that; “Some of the companies which have complied have been duly certified and can now export their fish and fishery products including shrimps to the international market”.

The Minister told the workshop that drew participants from fish producing countries that Nigeria is a large fish consuming nation and an exporter of fish and fishery products with a demand of 3.2 million Metric tons annually.

“Our National fish demand is in excess of 3.2 Million Metric tons while the production is about 1.1 Million Metric tons from all sources including aquaculture, artisanal and industrial fishing sectors resulting in a demand supply gap of about 2.1 Million Metric tons”, he said.

In his contribution, the National Project Coordinator of West Africa Agricultural productivity Program (WAAPP) in Nigeria, Dr. James Ocheme Apochi said that the development objective of WAAPP in Nigeria is to strengthen the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) to contribute to technological development, disseminate and adoption to boost agricultural productivity increases in the country’s top commodity sub-sectors that are aligned with sub-regional priorities.

“For Nigeria to attain self sufficiency in fish production, three key research areas that involve fingerlings production, feed and post-harvest need to be critically looked into as they constitute the major causes of under production in aquaculture”, he said.

He further reiterated that to increase food production, nutrition and boost food security in Nigeria, WAAPP Nigeria supported the production of 16,500.000 improved fingerlings which were given out to farmers and private commercial farms for rearing to table sizes.

The 2days workshop which brought together stakeholders in the aquaculture and fisheries industry including donors, government officials, regional and National Research Organizations is expected to deliberate on steps towards the establishment of World Fish Nigeria Research Program.