Rising cost of inputs crippling catfish farming

The Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria (CAFAN) on Monday said that the subsector is currently on the brink of collapse as many fish farmers had ceased operation due to the rising cost of inputs for production.

Benjamin Okpere, Edo State chairman of the fish farmers association, told journalists in Benin City, that the market price of inputs have doubled in the last one year and may further push players in the sector out of business if urgent action is not taken to counter the problem.

Okpere, who identified the unabated security challenges and forex trading as some of the driving forces pushing the cost of inputs, asked the Federal Government to support catfish farmers so as to boost local production with a view to increasing profits and meeting demand gap.

“The ever-increasing cost of feed is attributed to the high cost of forex trading and insecurity because those locally produced materials like maize that is found in the North are no longer sufficient as farmers can hardly go to their farms now. So, there is scarcity of those commodities and it has affected the price.

“The catfish business was a thriving one until last year when the economic realities became terrible for many farmers and this has affected production to a large extent. Ordinarily, it has been a profitable venture and, with the ban on imported fish, it has been a good source of protein because people take cat fish as fresh fish, barbecue and as dried fish. It is a delicacy people will not want to miss from their tables,” Okpere said.

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He, however, decried the interrupted power supply and the continuous price increase of diesel, adding that the cost implication of providing electricity has taken a hit on their business.

“The biggest of the farmers have downscale to some extent because a lot of them rely on generators to run their farms and can hardly buy diesel. One of the biggest factory operators in Benin City used to run power 24hours because of the scale of the factory but right now he has cut down and has resorted to petrol generators that can carry one or two boreholes at a time as against the eight boreholes he used before now.

“So, even the big farmers that have the capacity to operate are still challenged by the economic realities. Yes, we are still in business and some are expanding from small to medium but a good numbers are shutting down.

“Some state government intervention tried to bring in more people by creating jobs like what they did with the Libya returnees and other programs for startups, but we discovered that the sustainability is threatened because when somebody does a startup and you don’t make profits you wouldn’t want to continue because of the challenges that is bedeviling the catfish business,” he added.