COVID-19: Fish farmers lament huge losses, glut, business collapse

By Gabriel Ewepu

FISH farmers under the auspices of National Fish Association of Nigeria, NFAN, have decried the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic on their businesses as they call for a state of emergency in the sector.

 

The National President, NFAN, Dr Gabriel Ogunsanya, said “During the first two months of the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown in the country, our farmers and industry operators suffered huge losses.

 

“NFAN leaders had to intensify efforts and made a strong case before Exemption Duty Pass was granted us from the Presidential Task Force COVID-19 Pandemic, Inter-Ministerial Emergency Operations Centre, so that our products and input supply services started moving further from late April 2020.

 

“Our members observed and complied with the official rules of engagement, cooperating with security agencies on duty while contributing more to the critical national food security during this emergency period.

 

“However, we now have serious concerns that in the midst of obvious inadequate fish supply, production challenges and personal sacrifices, our farmers are currently facing unbelievable fish glut, abysmally low pricing and the inability to harvest and evacuate the ponds and other fish-holding water bodies, thereby preventing restocking to break the production cycle.

 

He added, “In the same vein, thousands of fish capture farmers in the South-South Region comprising Rivers, Bayelsa and Akwa – Ibom States were thrown out of business not long ago. This is as a result of a government order to enable investigations and thorough cleaning of alien poisoning incident that caused massive fish and aquatic life mortality in the creeks and coastline water bodies between March and April in the affected States.

 

“From inventory records, NFAN has the capacity within established members’ facilities to off-take for processing the mature fishes from different farm locations in the country to prevent post-harvest losses and make smoked fish available in the markets and for the national food bank and this requires intervention funding.”

 

Dr Gabriel Ogunsanya called for a declaration of a state of emergency in the fisheries and aquaculture industry in order to salvage the situation of struggling fish farmers, especially now.

 

“We are convinced and highly encouraged going by the policy directive and goodwill of the Honorable Minister of Agriculture Alh. Sabo Nanono who gave us hope during NFAN leaders meeting with him February 4, 2020, that as we carry on with the mandate and/ or task to meet national fish demand threshold in two years, our farmers also will in the present circumstances, need to receive some relief/ palliatives and economic stimulus packages to remain in business as the PTF on COVID-19 Pandemic extended to others.

 

“We also look up to our line Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Industry, Trade and Investment which established NFAN as an umbrella body to now bring government, relevant MDAs and funding bodies’ attention to bear on the prevailing plights of the hard-working fish farmers and industry operators in order to sustain our contributions to national food security and income generation across the board.

 

“We are committed and open to further discussion on these issues and more prospects for purposes of national development”, it added.

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