22 Communities Get NDDC Aquaculture Initiatives

More than 22 communities in Bayelsa and Delta States have benefited from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) aquaculture initiative launched two years ago.

Dr. Ebinimi Ansa, the Manager of the African Regional Aquaculture Centre disclosed this in Port Harcourt during the harvesting of mature fish in one of the demonstration farms.

Ansa, who conducted officials of the commission round the farm, said the project was aimed at reducing dependence on the importation of frozen fish.

“Nigeria has the natural and human resources to grow her own fish aid even export to other nations”, she said.

According to her, a lot of indigent farmers in the rural and urban communities of the Niger Delta Region have been trained on self-reliance, employment generation and poverty reduction activities.

The training programme, she said, would encourage people to engage in fish farming to be able to put food on their tables.

Ansa also said the scheme would provide employment as well as small and medium enterprise opportunities to help eradicate poverty in the region.

In his remarks, the NDDC Chairman, Air Vice Marshal Larry Koiyan (rtd), stressed the need for people in the South-South to embrace aquaculture as it had the capacity to provide employment, foreign exchange canings and eradicate poverty.

Koiyan underscored the importance of diversifying the nation’s economy away from oil, to achieve sustainable development.