The Lagos State Agro-Proccessing Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support (APPEALS), a World Bank assisted project, has identified duckweed as protein replacement in tilapia feed to minimize production cost.
Duckweed is the common name given to the simplest and smallest flowering plant that grows ubiquitously on fresh or polluted water.
The Facilitator for Aquaculture, APPEALS Project, Mrs. Bukola Idowu, said this during duckweed demonstration held at Sej Farms in Badagry, Lagos State.
Idowu said that duckweed could serve as a suitable replacement in tilapia feed.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the two-day demonstration was for tilapia farmers with facilitation from experts of the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research (NIFFR), New Bussa, Niger.
According to her, duckweed harvesting and processing is to be fed as fresh and sole diet or to be dried and used as additive along other feed components in feed formulation for fish.
She said: “We all know that fish feed takes nothing less than 70 per cent of the cost of production for fish farmers and we know what the cost of feed is now, considering the exchange rate.
“We have a lot of farms that have gone moribund because they cannot afford to continue to buy feed.
“What APPEALS stands for is to enhance what the farmers are doing so as to increase their production, enhance their productivity and improve their livelihood,” she said.
Idowu added that the APPEALS project was collaborating with NIFFR in New Bussa, for the demonstration for farmers to use and adapt new technologies to help minimize production cost.
The Productivity Enhancement Specialist for APPEALS project, Mr. Balogun Idris, said that the demonstration was coming at a time when farmers were experiencing a major challenge in the country.
Idris said that farmers who were into cage culture were selected to attend the training on how to use the duckweed and also step down the training for other farmers around them.
He said one of the aims of the Lagos State APPEALS Project Implementation Unit was to increase the productivity of fish farmers by strengthening their capacities and providing an enabling environment for their various activities.
Idris added that the new technology would create employment opportunities and also improve the livelihood of the farmers.
The Assistant Director and Head of Department, Environmental Studies, NIFFR, Dr. Yakubu Yauri, said there were a lot of useful and money spinning plants on the field that were not being utilized.
Yauri said the institute was doing various research of some of the plants that human beings were not consuming to turn them to livestock feed.
“We want to avoid the competition of eating what the animals too are eating. When we avoid that competition, the price will be less.
“These duckweed is in some of these fish farms but they don’t know what it is used for, they are just harvesting it and throwing it away, but you can harvest it, dry it and bag it.
“It saves money, like soya beans is expensive now, we want farmers to spend very little money and gain much more.
“We all know that fish feed takes about 70 per cent. We are looking at how we can reduce it to at least 30 per cent. If we reduce it to at least 30 per cent, farmers will gain more.” he said.
Yauri said the institute was looking at producing a feed that farmers could rely on that humans were not consuming.
“We want to avoid the competition.
“What is making the feeds expensive is that animals will want to eat and human beings too will want to eat the same thing.
“By the time we eliminate what humans are eating, the price will fall. Somebody can use that as a source of employment, harvest it, dry it and bag it for sale,” he noted.
He also explained that duckweed could be grown in fresh water.
“There is an instrument used in analyzing the PG level of the water and if the water is not too salty, it can grow on it within a month,” he said.
He advised farmers to adopt the new technology and see how it would reduce cost of production.
Farmers present at the training expressed their readiness to adopt the new technology so as to reduce cost of production.
Mr. Emmanuel Essien, a member of the Badagry Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, who said his team benefitted from the APPEALS tilapia cage culture, described the introduction of the technology as novel.
“It is new and strange but it looks very promising,” Essien said.
NAN reports that APPEALS project is a tripartite partnership of the World Bank, the Federal Government and the Lagos State Government to enhance productivity of small scale farmers.(NAN)
