Stakeholders have called on the federal government of Nigeria to domicile the country’s fishery and aquaculture sector in the newly created Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy rather than the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
The request came at the end of a two-day workshop to discuss the maiden Fishery and Aquaculture Policy for Nigeria (2024-2028) which is being developed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and funded by the Resilient Aquatic Foods Initiative (RSAFI) under the leadership of Dr. Catherine Ragasa of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington DC.
During the workshop, concerns were raised by stakeholders over where the new policy on fishery and aquaculture would be domiciled, fearing that it may be subdued in the agriculture ministry.
Professor of Resource and Environmental Economics at the University of Port Harcourt who is also the Policy Drafting Team Lead, Professor Anthony Ojonimi Onoja, said there was no better time to properly situate the fisheries and aquaculture in the new ministry to optimize their potential in propelling economic growth and development of the blue economy.