By Margaret Oraza
Fish Farming is a lucrative business that one could depend on as regards to health and economy; it is filled with omga-3fatty acids and vitamins that is rich in calcium, phosphorus and great source of minerals.
It’s also used as remedy for mental related illness such as dementia and Alzheimer’s which affects mostly ageing people, infant babies since breastfeeding mother’s are requested to eat fish in other to increase the immunity of their babies through breast intake and for the improvement of eye sight.
Mr Terkaa Achusa a graduate of the Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi in the fishery Department, managing a fish pond along International Market Road in Makurdi told The Voice fish farming business was done in the wild but as the world population grew bigger, the fish in wild started depleting due to the increase in consumption.
Fish farming as an important component of man’s daily life have different stages from breeding, stocking, harvesting and processing, that makes the cultivation either in a large or small body of water usually under the control of man for economy gains.
Breeding is process that involves the production of fish and fingering that is highly technical that requires the service of a professional, it involves the artificial fertilization of matured eggs from female and sperm (milt) from the male and incubated in a hatchery over some hours before they are hatched as new fishes which are called fry, from fry to fingerings and from fingering to juvenile then the adult matured fish due for consumption.
Stocking is the stage where fishes at the juvenile stage are stocked in a fish pond in a process called fish farming either in an earthen pond, semi earthen pond and concrete pond, feed by man-made feed exclusively over a number of months depending on the wish of the farmer to a table size from 4-6 months which they are harvested and sold for the generation of income.
Harvesting of fish is a period of time after when the fish have reached a table size the process of harvesting is carried out, this could be partial harvest which the fish are sorted according to size and growth level while the ones that are not big in size are left to increase in size and market value before they are totally harvested. He said the business has its own preservation and processing that the fish is kept in a wholesome state to prevent decay and spoilage while the preservation is to keep the fish in perfect condition and increase its shelf life for number of months or years, however different methods of preservation, smoking (locally) freezing, and sun drying.
Fish farming, though labour intensive and technical, has provided huge economic benefits across the globe since fish is a cosmopolitan organism that provides health remedy to its consumers.
The aforementioned stages in fish farming and production have provided employment opportunity for people thereby decreasing economic hardship of people.