FCFA 530 Million For Bankim Fishermen

The area's agropole programme was launched on Saturday May 11 with a yearly target of 1,814 metric tones.

Government and a confederation of fish farmers in Bankim, Mayo Banyo Division of the Adamawa Region, SOCOPAM, have put together FCFA 530 million to step up fish production in the area from the current 453.6 metric tones per annum to 1,814 metric tones as well as boost its local processing and marketing. This is through the agropole programme that officially went underway in Bankim Subdivision on Saturday May 11.

The government's share of the funding to the tune of FCFA 225 million comprises fishing equipment to the farmers, the construction of a young fish centre, a wharf for the sale of fish, a borehole at Biamo fishing village, some 11 km from Bankim town and a market in Bankim. There is also the rehabilitation of a cool store, a 500-m electric network, the rehabilitation of an 11-km access road from Bankim to Biamo, capacity building as well as the introduction of cage fish rearing at the Mapé dam. Meanwhile, the fish producers raised their counterpart funding of FCFA 305 million thanks to a local-based credit union, Rural Investment Credit.

Speaking during the launching ceremony, the National Coordinator of Agropole, Jean Claude Medou, said with the programme, Bankim fishermen could harvest 150 metric tones per month from artisanal fishing as well as 226 metric tones per quarter from commercial aquaculture. He noted that the State crafted the Agropole programme to bridge the demand/supply gap of agro-food, vegetal and forest products in the country. The State, Mr Medou said, imports about 170,000 metric tones of fish yearly amounting to FCFA 15 billion.

The Divisional Officer for Mayo Banyo Division, Boyomo Donatien, who chaired the ceremony said fish farming constitutes one of the mainstays of the people of Bankim and assisting them to boost production, processing and sale, as government has done through the agropole programme, was synonymous with improving their livelihoods and the area's socio-economic development. "The agropole programme in Bankim will not only transform the Subdivision and the entire Mayo Banyo Division given that we will multiply by four the actual fish production but will also boost youth employment in the area," he said.

A view corroborated by other speakers like the Mayor of Bankim, Djowe Philippe and the Secretary General of the federation of Bankim fish farmers, Wahoum Bruno Guillaume who both saw in the agropole programme a new dawn for the locality's over 10,000 fishermen from diverse nationalities who comb the over 3.3 billion cubic metrics of water of the Mbam and Mapé rivers to harvest fish for the thousand buyers from the West, North West, Centre and Adamawa regions as well as from neighbouring countries like Nigeria.

According to the modus operandi of the Agropole programme, the State support comes only when the beneficiary organ has mobilised its own counterpart funding. So far, the programme has been launched in Bomono; Littoral, Kribi; South and now Bankim; Adamawa Regions.