By Evelyn Omotoye

In a bid to breed fish and have a high yield, the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (OSOPADEC), is set to introduce cage culture for fishermen in the riverine area of the state.

The Chairman of the commission, Mr Gbenga Edema stated this while featuring as a guest on The Hope platform recently 

According to him, the cage culture was to encourage people to breed fish, so that they can have total control over yield against the usual crude fish catching in the wild.

His words:”One of the problems we have in the riverine area is that we don’t culture fish. Fish is still being caught in the wild. So they don’t have control over yield. 

“Some people who are at the brink of the Atlantic Ocean just go to the sea to catch fish or crayfish and they are subjected to the vagaries of the sea. 

“Sometimes they can’t go there because the tidal waves is very high and sometimes they go without a single catch and they have burnt fuel down there. The same way in the inland waters, they don’t have control over the catch.

“This is why we are trying to introduce what we called the cage culture.

“So we are already discussing with a lot of organisations including the Fishery Society of Nigeria, FISON, to help us train our people and supervise the project.

 “By the time we have cage culture and we put the people in cooperatives, they can harvest up to three times a year because we were told we can crop from four to six months a year. depending on the specie of the fish. 

Edema also said that the commission was demonstrating a drying or smoking  kiln to give fishermen modern way of smoking or drying the fish and to also improve the shelf life of the products.

“When we finish our experimentation and it works, we are planning to mass-produce the kiln for the benefit of our people. We also want to see that the cage culture is replicated for our people’s use.

He restated that the commission would bring people in under cooperative societies as they may not be able to afford it as individuals. “And by this, we can also invite the banks to come and give financial support”, he added.

According to the OSOPADEC boss, another facility the commission is putting in place for the fish cage culture is the fish hatchery. 

He therefore appealed to the people in the area to persevere a little more while cooperating with the present government and maintaining peace so as to witness more infrastructural development in the area.