Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, says the West African country plans to ban fish importation in the next two years.
The minister, who said this when he spoke at the 35th Annual Conference of the Fisheries Society of Nigeria in Abuja on Monday, added that the Nigerian government had ordered fish importers to consider farming and production locally.
Nanono noted that President Muhammadu Buhari has initiated and is implementing programmes, especially in the agriculture sector, to diversify the economy.
Nanono, who was represented by the Director of Federal Department of Fisheries, Mr Imeh Umoh, noted that an estimated over 12 million Nigerians are actively engaged in primary fish production.
He added that contribution of fisheries to the national Gross Domestic Products is about 4.5 per cent.
He said, “Let me inform you that the vision of Mr President is to grow Nigeria’s agriculture sector to achieve a hunger-free nation, through agriculture that drives income growth, accelerate the achievement of food and nutritional security, generate employment and transform Nigeria into a leading player in the group of food and fish markets, and to create wealth for millions. It is in this regard that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, under this present administration, is pursuing a holistic approach to the development of the fisheries subsector through the diversification programme along the value chain process.
“In line with the theme of this conference, the ministry has developed various programmes to increase domestic food/fish production and the main target is the empowerment of the youth and other groups especially the women. All these programmes are tailored towards wealth and jobs creation, arrest and prevention of youth restiveness. Currently, the total demand for fish is 3.6 million tonnes annually while Nigerian is producing 1.1 million tonnes, leaving a deficit of about 2.5 million tonnes to be supplemented by importation.
“As part of the measures of the ministry to reduce this importation and generate employment, the government has directed all fish importers to go into backwards integration for local consumption and export to the international market. In this regard, several companies have complied with the policy and the ministry is optimistic that in the next two years, Nigeria will have no business with importation of fish.”
