{"id":15355,"date":"2026-11-11T18:46:52","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T18:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/11\/oyetola-woos-investors-to-nigerias-catfish-industry-cites-2-2m-tonnes-supply-gap-businessday-ng\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T18:46:52","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T18:46:52","slug":"oyetola-woos-investors-to-nigerias-catfish-industry-cites-2-2m-tonnes-supply-gap-businessday-ng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/11\/oyetola-woos-investors-to-nigerias-catfish-industry-cites-2-2m-tonnes-supply-gap-businessday-ng\/","title":{"rendered":"Oyetola woos investors to Nigeria\u2019s catfish industry, cites 2.2m tonnes supply gap – Businessday NG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adegboyega Oyetola, Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, has called on investors and financial institutions to take advantage of Nigeria\u2019s catfish industry, citing an annual fish supply deficit of about 2.2 million metric tonnes as a major opportunity for investment, job creation and economic growth.\n<\/p>\n

Oyetola made the call at a high-level roundtable on Scaling Sustainable Catfish Value Chain Transformation, organized under the FISH4ACP program\u00a0 <\/span>on Wednesday in Abuja.\n<\/p>\n

The minister said Nigeria\u2019s annual fish requirement stood at approximately 3.6 million metric tonnes, while domestic production from all sources was estimated at 1.4 million metric tonnes, leaving a supply gap of about 2.2 million metric tonnes.<\/p>\n

He described the deficit as both a challenge to national food security and an opportunity for investors to expand domestic production, reduce import dependence and develop a more competitive aquaculture industry.\n<\/p>\n

According to him, Nigeria is already Africa\u2019s second-largest aquaculture producer and a leading producer of farmed African catfish, giving the country a strong foundation to attract investment and scale up production.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cExpanding domestic fish production is an economic and food security imperative. It offers an opportunity to strengthen domestic food supply, reduce dependence on fish imports, stimulate enterprise development and create sustainable livelihoods across the country,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Oyetola identified several investment opportunities across the catfish value chain, including hatcheries, feed mills, equipment manufacturing, transportation, processing, cold-chain infrastructure and trading.\n<\/p>\n

He noted that investment in aquaculture would generate benefits beyond fish farming by creating demand for inputs, logistics, processing services and other supporting businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestment in aquaculture has a multiplier effect, creating opportunities and value across several interconnected sectors of the economy,\u201d the minister said.\n<\/p>\n

However, he acknowledged that the industry continued to face constraints limiting its capacity to meet domestic demand.\n<\/p>\n

These include inadequate access to quality fingerlings, high costs of fish feed and energy, limited financing, fish health challenges, weak biosecurity practices, unreliable markets and insufficient modern processing and cold-storage facilities.\n<\/p>\n

He urged financial institutions to develop financing products that reflect the operational realities of fish farming, particularly its production cycles and cash-flow requirements.\n<\/p>\n

According to him, the timing of loan disbursement, repayment schedules and cost of credit must be structured around the realities of aquaculture businesses to ensure that farmers can access and effectively utilize financing.<\/p>\n

The minister said addressing these constraints would require stronger collaboration between government, investors, financial institutions and other stakeholders across the value chain.\n<\/p>\n

The roundtable was organized under FISH4ACP, a program supported by the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).\n<\/p>\n

The programme operates in 12 countries across Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, with interventions in Nigeria focused on transforming the catfish value chain into a more sustainable, productive and competitive sector.\n<\/p>\n

Oyetola called for sustained private-sector participation to unlock the industry\u2019s potential, improve local fish supply and create employment opportunities, particularly for small-scale farmers and businesses.<\/p>\n

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Source: <\/p>\n

Businessday NG<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adegboyega Oyetola, Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, has called on investors and financial institutions to take advantage of Nigeria\u2019s catfish industry, citing an annual fish supply deficit of about… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}