Fish from the wild is dwindling because of over exploitation. For these reasons, the price of fish in the local markets is forever rising making it difficult for the common man to have access to this basic protein source.
The good news is that the country’s leaders seem to have understood the dire need for inland aquaculture to supplement importation by beginning to promote inland fish farming.
Dr Taiga, Minister of Livestock Fisheries and Animal Husbandry, has said the government has begun building intensive production centres in several regions across the country. This is in a bid to produce 100000 tons of fish per year.
One of such centres is the Moyomessala Fish Centre in the South Region of the country inaugurated recently which is expected to produce 17 tons of fish annually thanks to the construction of modern fish ponds and the training of young fish farmers.
In the past Cameroonian inland fish farmers have depended mostly on outdoor fish ponds whose yields are too meagre even for subsistence. Untrained fish farmers most often keep the local breed that does not grow fast using obsolete fish feeding methods. Fish feeding methods as well as the production of fish feed are a problem to be addressed with immediate effect.
Ngam Valentine, an aquaculture promoter who was in Nigeria to attend a workshop on fish farming visited fish farms in that country and says that Cameroon is still lagging behind.
“We are wasting a lot of time and energy for very meagre yields and after very long periods. How many Cameroonians know that we can produce fish feed practically everywhere in Cameroon because we dispose of all the ingredients and replacement ingredients that compose fish feed. Corn, soya beans, palm kennels etc?”
One of the fish farm industries (Durante fish industries LTD) he visited in Ibandan, Nigeria produces about 50 tons of fish in a 60 m3 building annually.
“It is a type of cultivation system in which effluents or used water from fish rearing units is partially or completely re-circulated to them after water treatment and reconditioning. This system rears fish at high densities with reduction in water usage. This is achieved by employing a water treatment unit, which includes mechanical filtration, biological filtration solid waste removal, water sterilization and aeration. WRS conserve both water and land and maximize production in a relatively small area of land, use a relatively small volume of water. This is in contrast to outdoor earth ponds we are used to in our country." Ngam valentine says.
Government’s attempts to encourage fish farming in the country in the past led to the creation of fish stations here and there in the country to provide fingerlings to fish farmers.
These centres were put under the management of civil servants with no targets to attend. These centres have been left in total abandon with the result being a failure to stimulate inland fish farming in the country and total dependence on importation with its fiscal consequences.
The government could attend inland fish farming production targets by reinvesting the large sums of money used in importation to train fish farmers and subsidizing the activity in Cameroon through cooperatives.
This will not only provide jobs, it will also make fish available to the population at affordable prices.
“Fish farming generates employment directly and indirectly in terms of people employed in the production of fishing output and other allied business, it also generates income for all categories of people involved in fish farming and thus contributes to the national income,” Says Ngam.
Compared with other livestock, it requires less space, time, and money and has a higher feed conserving rate and therefore the population should be sensitised on the lucrative opportunities that lie hidden behind modern inland fish farming.
“This opportunity should be presented to the whole public in all the ten regions of the country and well studied schemes prepared to train, sponsor and encourage the first sets of motivated youths who have decided to carry out this trade.”
MINADER in a game of contract farming
The Investment and Development of Agricultural Markets projects (Pidma) has been launched at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The project estimated at 50 billion F CFA concerns cassava, maize and sorghum. They shall be given special attention in higher yields and better marketing with the assistance of Pidma.
The project aims to consistently sell all the production even before the crops are planted. This is what MINADER boss, Esimi Menye, called "contract farming."
Thus, the producer of maize, cassava and sorghum signs a contract with a buyer before producing. It is worth noting that the project is intended only to cooperatives in order to master the production support and monitor trade negotiations between the contracting parties.
Can Pidma finally solve the perennial problem of marketing, post harvest losses or misuse of crops ? This is what is expected because the demand is high and one cannot say that marketing opportunities are lacking.
During the ceremony some users of these commodities signed partnership agreements with the project in which they committed to buy the produce.
These were NKAM and the Bakers' Union which will buy corn for Feed and cassava for flour to be incorporated into the bread respectively.
If Pidma were to respect its commitments, it is quite possible that gradually, Cameroon bread will first contain cassava flour and then the other commodities produced at home such as (potato, plantain, corn?...).
However, the union president insists that a presidential decree must impose this flour in bread.
Although Pidma is the promoter, the problem of lack of seeds remains challenge transportation from areas of production a nightmare, the price of products compared to competing products overwhelming (cassava flour is more expensive than that of wheat, which may discourage bakers from incorporating the flour into bread). The project expires in 2018.
