Katsina fish farmers receive improved technologies

One of the major deficiencies of fish farming in Nigeria has always been the processing. In a bid to improve the processing, the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) recently presented some new tools to the Katsina fish farmers. John Oba reports.

The processing and preservation of fish are important, since fish is highly susceptible to deterioration immediately after harvest and can easily be contaminated due to the unhealthy means of processing, while the shelf life of fishes deteriorates faster than it ought to be when not properly handled, which necessitates the use of freezing, smoking, drying and heat treatment to prevent decay.
But with improved technologies, fresh fish can be processed as wanted without any significant loss of quality, this is why WAAPP has commenced the process of assisting fish farmers in Katsina state with improved technologies that would help them in fish processing, preservation and production.
WAAPP recently donated sets of solar tents dryers and retail tables to a group of fish farmers, sellers and retailers in Katsina.
Meeting with groups of fish farmers in Katsina last week, the WAAPP National Coordinator, Dr. James Ocheme Apochi, said the programme is ready to assist them with technologies that would improve their business and smoking kins that would further help them observe good hygiene during processing.
He said the technologies being donated to the farmers are just two out of the many technologies the programme has developed in aquaculture to reduce post-harvest losses.
“We’ve being round the country and seen how fish farmers process their fishes in a very unhygienic ways and since we have developed a better technology that will help process and dry their fishes in an hygienic way, that is what motivated us today to help, this is one of the centres that will be benefiting from our improve technology.
“So the solar dryer and the retail table we are giving are technology generated from materials that are within the locality and it is simple and cost effective. It protects and prevents the fish from attack by insects and flies and it is environmentally friendly. We want them to do it better so they can have value for their money and those who want to export their fishes to other countries would not have it rejected.

He said the technology is cheap as a unit of the retail table is not more than N10,000 and solar dryer is within the range of N5000 to N10000, these according to him are things that farmers can do since the materials are locally sourced.
“We are proactive because we gave them improved fingerlings, taught them how to farm it and we are giving them this technology so they can preserve their fish. This is one of the ways we want to encourage them to produce more of the fish since they have good equipment,” he said.
Why urging the farmers to procure more of the technology, he however said since WAAPP is partnering with all the agricultural development programme (ADPs) across the country, it will be easy to monitor the uses of the technologies.
The chairman, Katsina State Fish Sellers and Retailers Cooperative Society, Goruba road, Mr. Bashir Abu Sufyawu, commending WAAPP effort said the new technologies will help the farmers to expand their market and process in hygienic way so that customers will realise that the farmers have improved.
“This will make us to get more market because before now we were selling our products in an open space where flies can easily contaminate it and buyers will come and touch with their hands without buying the particular fish they touch, but this time, those are no more possible, we are now going to sell our fish in an hygienic manner,” he said.

The Minister of agriculture and rural development, Chief Audu Ogbeh commending the efforts of WAAPP said the objectives of the programme in promoting technology and research in the agricultural space is a key to the fulfillment of the Green Alternative roadmap as all it is doing are all captioned in the roadmap.
The minister who was represented by his special assistant on international donor partners, Mr. Appeh Auta said: “One of the major plan in the roadmap is to promote technology and research in the agricultural space and this space, we find that one of our aid programme, WAAPP is actively beginning to engage and disseminate technology in agriculture to our people.
“Here we are in Katsina presenting technologies that will help them preserve their fish and how to handle it in a much more hygienic way to the farmers. We done a lot of extensive work reaching out to several farmers in aquaculture, both marketers and processors, the pesticide platform and to other,” he explained.
On his effort to ensure that donor agencies invest more in agriculture, he said the government is trying to look at ways to get ultimate yield and efficiency for the use of every naira this is brought into each programme in the sector.

He continued: “WAAPP is a programme that is about to wrap up in a couple of month but we find it efficiency is in good space and it technology and use of it has been very proficient in the Nigeria space  and currently WAAPP Nigeria is look at in West Africa as the pillar of technology innovation in other field, we have applied and we are in constant touch with the World bank to extend WAAPP programme for the next five years but we are just staying up to get an inter-run programme financing to hold to 2018 where we will boost it up in a more larger scale, so programme that are efficient and can show value for what it is to the Nigeria populist we are quick in support of and those one we are working with the donor community to extend and to ask for financing,” he explained.
Training the fish farmers on the installation of the dryers, Engr. Solomon Awuleme Okoze, from the National Institute for Fresh Water Fisheries Research, (NIFFR) New Bussa, said: “This is a greenhouse dryer that is being refer to as a solar tent dryer because it uses a solar energy for the drying of fish and it allows solar irradiation to go in and within this irradiation we have different banes of energy that help dry the fish inside.
He said the materials used can be bought in the local market but said it could take up to seven to nine hours to a fish and urged that the fish should be dissected to make for quick drying.