A Review of Aquaculture Production in Nigeria： Problems and Prospects

Nigeria is the most populous black nation in the world, with an estimated population about 150 million people. Its citizens as at the end of 2012 have a projected fish demand of 2.66 million tonnes of fish. Fish supply within the said period was 1.32 million tonnes. This figure was made up of 0.7 million tonnes from importation and 0.62 million tonnes from both artisanal and aquaculture. Of the local production aquaculture contributes only 200 000 tonnes. Studies have shown that fish catch from the wild has reached its maximum production limit and production from this area is currently on the decline. Nigeria has about 1.75 hm2 of suitable sites for aquaculture development. Aquaculture production for 2012 was a meager 200 000 tonues. Aquaculture though a veritable means is faced with a lot of constraints ranging from government＇s wrong focus on industrial fisheries instead of aquaculture, poor policy formulation and non-implementation fisheries development programmes among others. In spite of these constraints, there were also the following aquaculture investment opportunities such as production of fishing equipment, establishment of modern fish farms, shrimp fishing, fingerling production, table size fish production, brood stock production, fish feed production, ornamental fish farming, production system design and construction, capacity building in project management, packaging and branding.

Optimal effort,fish farming,and marine reserve in fisheries management

In this paper,we develop a bioeconomic model to determine an optimal wild catch harvest and freshwater commercial aquaculture production in a lake that uses cages or floating rafts.Although off-bottom aquaculture activities have less impact on the environment compared to on-bottom aquaculture,it has negative externalities.It takes away the fishing area and hence creates pressure in the open-access fishing ground.It also changes the nutrient and ecological composition of the environment.We recommend the implementation of a reserved area to minimize the impact of fishing and aquaculture activities.The reserve also helps in improving the habitat and restocking the fish population which is declining rapidly.We determine the optimal sizes of the aquaculture and reserve and the optimal effort level that maximizes social welfare.We illustrate our findings using numerical simulations and perform an analysis of the optimal solutions with respect to biological and economic parameters involved in the model.