Obasanjo rallies support for fish farmers on sustainable price

Bankole Taiwo, Abeokuta

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Tuesday said that the rise in cost of diseles as well as constant increase in prices of fish feeds will eventually run Nigerian fish farmers out of business except they come together to agree on sustainable prices that could be adopted to keep them in business.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also into fish farming disclosed that the farmers can longer be producing at the mercy of the buyers who would come around to buy the fish for whatever amount that suited them without taking into account the effect of the current economic effect on the production of such fishes.

The former President who was speaking at the congress of the
South-West Fish Farmers Price Sustainability Group held inside the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, (OOPL) Abeokuta, disclosed that now is the time for the fish farmers to agree on minimum price they intended selling their fish per killo henceforth.

He said with current price of diseles at 800 per litre, production of a kilogram of fish is N1,400 and that to make very marginal profit, the farmers can’t sell less than N1,500 as anything different is outright loss.

Obasanjo said ” we are practically here today to ensure our sustainability in the fishing business and that we have to do by selling at profitable price. If we don’t come together as an association, nationally, we will sink individually. If we come together, we will swim and survive together.

“And while we are working on coming together, I thought that the situation has arose whereby we have to do something urgently.

“The price of diesel has gone sky high because the management of this country is not what it should to be. And it is as simple as that. Then, what will happen is that, particularly those of us who have to use a bit of diesel in producing fish, we will completely go bankrupt, and when that happens, Nigerians will still have to eat fish.

“Fish production will be out of reach and then, people will be producing fish outside Nigeria and be dumping it here. And you will go jobless, poor and indigent. So, what do we have to do? To come together…we want to sustain fish production and we must be able to take care of those who are going to eat and those of us who are producing”.

The President of South-West Fish Farmers Price Sustainability Group, Mr Amo Tunbosun Amo disclosed that the country currently consumes around 3.6 million metric tonnes of fish annually but only produce 1.12 million tonnes leaving a balance of 2.6 millions tonnes to be imported.

Mr Amo Tunbosun Amo explained that one of the major challenges confronting the fish farmers is the continued increase in the prices of inputs in the production of fish and majorly the feed and the refusal of the buyers to buy the fish at commensurate price.

He said “this is the essence of this gathering, we find out that we have to take our destiny in our hands, we can’t continue to produce and be at the mercy of the buyers, we felt we need to come around and do something for ourselves. We are starting with Southwest and in a matter of time it will be all over the country’.

Amo disclosed that one other challenge the federal government should help tackle is the dredging of various water ways that is making many fish farmers to lose millions of their investment to flood saying that “for instance the Ikangba/Agoro fish farmers via Ijebu Ode recently lost over N500m investment, same thing happened at Eriwe too last year leading to loss of N600m. The federal government should help to dredge Eriwe waterways as well as Yemule river to combat this annual terrible losses”.

Steve Okeleji, the convener of the congress said the fish farmers have decided to come together to rescue the industry.

Okeleji said “we have to come together to see how we can rescue our industry. It’s now very obvious to us that if we don’t do something fast, the aquaculture industry in Nigeria will be submerged.

“If everything were to be right with our economy, this congress wouldn’t have been necessary.

“So, the farmers must be heard. We also virtually key player in the industry. In fact, we play important role across the value chain of the industry. But the major challenge we have over time is that we are not able to speak with one voice.

“We are going to come out with recommendations after our meeting, and we are going to use the goodwill of our father, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who also has a huge investment in the sector, for the government for them to help us”.