In its bid to ensure food security, job creation and attain self-sufficiency in fish production in Nigeria, Premium Aquaculture Ltd – a subsidiary of Stallion Group is all set to kick-start tilapia production at their farm site located at Oyan Dam .
The
main intention of the project, according to the Project Manager,
Tiaju Govindaraju, is to reduce the gap between demand and supply of
fish in the country through local production of food fish such as
catfish and tilapia. “As per our commitment to the nation, we are
building capacities to produce 20,000 MT of fish (4500 MT of catfish and
15,500 MT Tilapia) with an investment of over $100 million in the next 5
years.
“In
January 2015, we had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with
Ogun-Oshun River Basin Development Authority as per Federal Government’s
Agricultural Transformation Agenda,” Govindaraju said.
A state-of-the-art
feed mill is also in the works, as part of the plans to advance the
capacity of the project, as disclosed by the Project Manager, “to make
this project more sustainable and eco-friendly, we are planning to build
a state of the art feed mill which can produce high quality floating
pellet feeds, with locally sourced vegetative raw materials. The Tilapia
hatchery with a production capacity of 60 million fingerlings per annum
has been mapped to be sited close to the cage site and is currently
under construction.”
The Premium Aquaculture Farm
which values both natural resources and community, is set to directly
employ about 600 individuals and over 1,000 more indirectly in the
course of its operations, especially from the rural areas. Cutting
across several service industries, direct employment beneficiaries
includes feed raw material suppliers like maize, soya and cassava
farmers, fuel suppliers, feed transporters, metal fabrication/boat
repairs, and fish distributors.
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