Fish farming has abaundance potential, which is being brought to the fore in the Niger Delta, writes SOUTH SOUTH REGIONAL EDITOR SHOLA O’NEIL reports
On a dewy Thursday morning, Forgive Makpamekun an energetic young man meanders through a web of patched mud path interposed erratically by 2″x6″ planks in the swampy riverside of Egbokodo, Warri Southwest local government area of Delta state.
It was a chilly morning and the overcast of precipitation made it hard for this reporter to follow up with Forgive’s sure brisk steps. He was a man – in his early 30s – fully aware of and at peace with his environment. As he swayed along, he would momentarily pause and check on a pond, flicking twig away here and firmiing saggy fishnet there. He sweeps inquisitive gaze through the sea of ponds, ensuring that all was well everywhere. He performed these tasks with such relish and assurances that seem almost seem arrogant.
He is a fulltime fish farmer, a teacher of the trade and one of the leading lights of Alero Cooperative Union, comprising dozens of other cooperative in the Itsekiri town. Just a few years into the business he has grown into a teacher, fish processor and consultant.
On that Thursday morning, the soft-spoken farmer was in no mood for chitchat with a nosy reporter; his focus was on the day’s business, which was the harvest of another pond in the peaceful vicinity.
Over six hundreds ponds are spread out on the vast land; the heavy cloud of dews makes it look like a desert spread beyond what the eyes could see. It was peaceful and serene that morning till the roaring of pumping machine broke in and changes the mood.
The life of the ebullient young man is a testimony of what youths can achieve with the right attitude, determination and right support. From a struggling fish farmer a few years ago, he has grown to a farmer of repute and one of the most trusted hand and go-to guy in fish farming business in the Niger Delta.
Forgive is a beneficiary and now one of the backbones of the strategic Training of Trainers Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta. “Fish farming is my life, career and my future resolves round it,” he told our reporter during a telephone conversation because he was too busy for chat at the farm.
“When I started fish farming in Egbokodo a few years ago, there were only just about 10 abandoned ponds. It has been a long but rewarding journey for me. The turning point for me was 2014, when I was trained by PIND.”
Like thousands of other farmers, before the training he farmed haphazardly; basing his decision on when to stock, when to feed and when to harvest on his intuition and advice from others like himself.
But all that changed after he gained knowledge on how the business is done. “It was at that training that I learnt about the best management practices and other management skills that have turned by business and life around.”
“For instance, I started recording keeping, which I never saw as important. I took account of everything I was doing from stocking of the pond to feeding. What we did in the past was to just feed and feed and feed. But from the training, I learnt about Biomas feeding, which is done by body-weight. The weight of the fish tells you how much to feed them. I also learnt that you should recount like two months after stocking for properly planning and record.”
He explained he was hurting his business by overfeeding or underfeeding – losing money either way. He said when fishes are overfed the cost of running the pond increases and cuts into his profit. In the same vein when they are underfed, it affects yield.
“We were also taught how to check water quality using a circuit dip to ensure that the fishes get the best quality water to enable them thrives.
“The training, I must tell you, is invaluable. I got to know about stock density and the danger of overstocking, when you overstock, there is not enough space for the fish; this leads to hostility and cannibalism. It also causes quick pollution of water through release of excess ammonia gas that causes diseases and variety of other problems.”
Indeed, he is one of several beneficiaries of PIND intervention through market system development approach and the M4P module, which is targeted, as the name implies, is geared towards making market work for the poor.
Our finding revealed that PIND carried out critical analysis of the Aquaculture sector prior to its intervention. The constraints of the sector were identified along with potentials for growth, possibilities of scale up, and all were mainly focused on where those on the bottom of the rung are highly concentrated.
The foundation started its Aquaculture intervention at the Ufuoma Fish Farmers Association in Ekpan, near Warri. The over 600-member group has over 2,000 ponds who were actively involved in fish farming.
PIND’s intervention in the fish farming business in the region involves the development of support market – actors in the value chain who provide services from financial institution, aqua service providers (ASPs) and processors. The ASPs were identified and trained by a consultant on how to train farmers.
The ASPs then train a chosen set of 80 farmers, who went through the rudiments from fingerlings to table size. The training was done using eight demonstration ponds, which were harvested after six months, and yields and profits were compared with what the farmers’ had pre-intervention.
The finding, according to PIND showed: “Where farmers overstocked their ponds to make up for high mortality of their fish, rate of deaths of stocked fish dropped b 30% post-intervention with an average yield was up to 711kg, even though farmers stocked less.”
Buoyed by the success of the pilot scheme, PIND broadened the project, training even more farmers through a pool of local ASP, who taught farmers technical and business knowledge needed to be more successful.
Over the years, the system has become a mutually beneficial relationship between farmers and service providers. A PIND source, which spoke on condition of anonymity because he was qualified to speak for the NGO, said they first had to battle and suppress what was termed ‘entitlement mentality’ in the areas.
“PIND does not give freebies; we encouraged service providers to get farmers to pay for the services rendered to them. We don’t want they to see it as another cake for sharing, and it is true that when people pay for services they tend to take it more serious and this becomes more sustainable,” our source said.
Beyond training, the foundation used its reach to get feed and hatchery companies to be part of the training and learning process. The companies saw the training as opportunity to open up new market and up their sales and got actively involvement. More jobs are being created both by the service providers and farmers who engage dozens of locals and even give support their host communities UUFFA has done in Ekpan.
The success of the UUFFA intervention opened up opportunities for a scaled, which took the project to Camp 74 in Asaba and parts of Ondo, Cross River, Bayelsa and Rivers, where PIND partnered with MADE.
As the training expanded, it opened up new vistas for trainees to become trainers of other trainees (ToT). When this opportunity opened up, Forgive promptly became part of it. He is now a backbone of Training of Trainers (ToT) initiative of PIND unique intervention module in the region.
Forgive is a member of this growing crop of teachers and consultants. “When I started, I had nothing, but today I can proudly tell you with this I have been able to get married and take care of my family. I have also acquired properties.
He has become successful and well known, and was one of the teachers of fish farming in the Delta State Government’s youths agric empowerment scheme, YEGAP.
About a year ago, he was one of seven beneficiary of N1million grant from PIND. He judiciously used to scale up his business and expanded to other areas of the fish farming business, including fish smoking and feed making.
However, on the downside of expansion of knowledge is improved yields and expansion, which created problems for farmers through oversupply and glut in the market. The prices of fish dropped drastically as a result, and not even structured harvest solved the problem.
Again, PIND stepped in with a solution.
“We discovered that they were having problems, because traders (fish sellers) would come at time when they know the ponds are ripe for harvest and the farmers would not want to continue to spend money on feeds. At times like that it is the traders who would fix the price that they are willing to pay.
“So we decided to step in with the next step, which is processing, so that if farmers cannot sell their fish at the time, value is added it by smoking.”
The solution was improved smoking technology, such as Chokor oven and smoking kiln, which serve fish farmers in upland and riverside communities in Ondo, Delta and Bayelsa states. These technologies are more effective and use less fuel, making it sustainable and environment friendly. It also freed the farmers from the snare of traders.
Speaking on his experience, Forgive told our reporter that beyond empowering him financially, his focus was changed by his training.
Speaking in the same vein, Mr. Fischer Ogugu of UUFFA said members of the association, who now provide thousands of direct and indirect employment for transporters, day workers and others. Ogugu said the farmers are now looking beyond crude oil.
In spite of the successes of the various associations, Forgive said there is more to do, especially in the area of feed, if the market must continue to grow. He said manufacturers of local feed needs subsidy, along with other factors those NGOs as PIND cannot control.
“For us to address the challenges of raw materials, availability and cost, government should make it easy to access extruding machine that this makes it costlier in the long run, because we don’t get full value, unlike imported feeds which last about 30 – 1hr.
“Sinking feeds are mostly wasted, spread pollution, and leads to lose of feed. When you increase fishmeal, which make it float you increase the cost of production almost to the imported ones.”
