Skretting Nigeria opens new extruders line in Ibadan Oyo State on 25^th February 2016

Skretting a Nutreco Company formally opens its new extruder line in Ibadan ,Oyo State Nigeria. The event which was witness by dignitary from  cross section of the catfish and tilapia farmers,suppliers and disributors was a successful event which bring to fore, the importance of localization of the feed mill in Nigeria by an international feed company Nutreco .

The journey started years back when Nutreco is entered into a joint venture with Durante, a leading supplier of fish feed in Nigeria and an existing distribution partner. Nutreco signed an agreement to create Skretting Nigeria, owned 60% by Nutreco and 40% by Durante, which will invest in local production of extruded fish feed for Nigeria and the wider West African region.”By entering into this joint venture, we establish our presence in the Nigerian market, which is one of Africa’s most important,” Nesse said. “This is Nutreco’s second foothold in Africa, after our investment in Egypt last year, and expands our share of fish feed for non-salmonid species. This fits perfectly in our strategy.”

One-hundred-year-old Nutreco’s new partner Durante was founded in 1999 by  Late Ade Alakija and Willy Fleuren, who built Durante into a leading company in the Nigerian aquaculture sector.

In his speech , the President of the Tilapia Aquaculture Developers Association Nigeria Mr Remi Ahmed he trailed the beginning of the event leading to the establishment of skretting fish feed in Nigeria.

The speech as contained in a document title: FISH FEED PRODUCTION A WELCOME IDEA.

Nutreco is one of the world leaders, as far as animal nutrition is concerned. My first contact with the company was in Bordeaux in 1996. My move to invite the company to Nigeria then was like having a tall dream. Our total feed consumption then in Nigeria cannot be more than 250tons. The company representative was then not impressed even with my exaggeration. Almost twenty year later, we are not only buying from SKRETTING, the company is now here with us producing world class feed. It is a great achievement, Durante is now partnering with a worldwide leader in aquaculture feed.

Aquaculture represents the most efficient method by which to convert feed to edible protein. Fish provides more than one billion poor people with most of their daily animal protein. How do we then make this essential commodity avoidable for all? Aquaculture industry is the fastest growing food production industry in the world and by 2030, 60 per cent of all the fish that will be consume will come from Aquaculture.

The main cost factor in aquaculture is the cost of the feed. High amount of fish meal have been of major concern both environmentally and economically. Nigeria has a huge potential to practice sustainable Aquaculture, especially by increasing the production and utilization of local feed ingredients and improving infrastructure logistics. Like British American Tobacco, Nigeria farmers are been provided with all sort of incentives to grow tobacco leaves. He is not only providing improves seed and seedlings of their crop. He cares for the well being of their farmers. The Indians and the Lebanese behaves the same way to cotton farmers in the northern part of Nigeria.  These groups of farmers are very sure of off takers of their products. Nobody is doing this for both maize and soya been farmers. Both seeds can strive well in the western part of Nigeria. The recent news that 37,000metric tons of maize is needed in Namibia for N4.2billion. There may be greater demand for Nigeria maize all the year round. To continue to import maize or its substitute wheat will cost fortune and acheter viagra will not make the price of made in Nigeria feed to be competitive.

Farmers need assurance that the products will be bought from them.  This will surely bring a significant increase in Soya and Maize production in Nigeria. You cannot rely on importation of these entire ingredient to produce a cheaper fish feed. Research and Development organizations, aquaculture companies and raw material producers and feed producers need to come together to arrest the trend of high cost fish feed ingredients.

Fish meal Production. Development of reduction fisheries is important if we must stop over dependent on importation of fish meal. There are pelagic species waiting to be exploited for fish meal. Institute of oceanography and Marine should liaise with to start local production this essential raw material for fish feed.

In Nigeria today, our Catfish are very weak genetically. There are no serious efforts to improve our broodstock. This is the reason why our fingerlings are very susceptible to infection, particularly bacterial infection. It is on this note that I will recommend that the immunity of our fish to be boosted with probiotics. This can be done by adding probiotics directly to your feed.

A case for tilapia farming cannot be over emphasized, we as stakeholder in tilapia aquaculture development, it is strongly believed that all round collaboration are required for the development of quality feed for tilapia at the least cost, involvement in continuous research, tilapia feed trials and  farm supports    that will engineer commercial tilapia revolution in Nigeria  thus helping to diversify specie diversification, create employment and support industry growth.

Thank you.