The Federal Government has announced the decision to stop issuing fish importation quota to importers.
This was disclosed by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, during a meeting with the Ijebu Development Initiative on Poverty Reduction (IDIPR) in Abuja, yesterday.
According to Lokpobiri, “We realised that fish import is no more sustainable and what we did was to encourage those that import it to think of the backward integration by reducing the quota year by year in agreement with the CBN.”
The minister noted that stopping the trade will help boost local production of fish and other agricultural products in the country.
“When we came last two years, Nigeria was producing about 700,000 tonnes of fish but this has increased to about 1.2 million tonnes which means that there has been increment of 400 tonnes. This increase represents more than 50 per cent of what we were producing,” he noted.
However, Lokpobiri commended the IDIPR for contributing to fish production in the country, while also advising other states to emulate the community’s agricultural initiative.
He further promised that the Federal Government will soon complete and commission the fish feed mill located at Eriwe village farm in Ijebu community of Ogun State.
The current deficit in fish in Nigeria is over two million tonnes. He therefore urged Nigerians to invest in the aquaculture industry to boost fish production and create jobs in the sector.
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