SRI LANKA COMPANIES TO TRY SHRIMP FARMING IN NIGERIA

By Walter Jayawardhana

A Sri Lankan company called Sulalanka Nigeria Ltd. has anoounced it is leading a consortium of companies based in Sri Lanka to invest US $200 million in Nigeria’s aqua culture shrimp farms in South Western part of Africa’s oil rich nation.

The CEO and managing Director of the company Upali Karunaratne, told the Vanguard.com website this would provide Nigeria’s country branded shrimp to have a suitable and satisfying role in the international market since currently, Nigerian shrimp are not branded after the country.

Under the scheme Nigerian shrimp farmers will be trained and assisted to set up their farms and their products will be bought when the shrimp is matured under strict supervision, he said.

“The stake of the company is to provide the farmers with the ponds, materials, pond lining, feeds, stocking, chemical and adequate supervision from stocking to maturity,’’ Karunaratne further said.

He said that the coastal area is advantageous for the project and that arrangements had been made to ensure that hinterland farmers were provided with water recycling ponds powered by solar energy and backed with generator sets and gas. The technique, according to him, is zero exchange, environmental friendly and that water would be a recycling system “The repayment of the loan,” he said, would be in three years and that the stocking of the shrimp to maturity would be between two to three months to enable the farmers have several turn-over.

He further said that the company would liaise with the various states in the country, where the project will be established for the effective take off of the projects and that it would accelerate poverty alleviation, job creation and reduction of the movement of youths to the cities seeking white collar jobs.

Speaking on international laws on marine fisheries, he said that recent international regulation on shrimps catching in the fresh waters had stipulated shrimps export to the international market should be labeled after the country of origin, farmed or cut in the wild.

He said that the regulation also prohibited the catching of shrimps with egg and less than 200 grams to ensure sustainability of the marine resources.

On the farm techniques, he explained the pond would be adopted to have a maximum of 3 particle per thousand (3PPT), of saline water to enhance productivity there is zero exchange water re circulation and environment friendly and that there will be no water discharge to the ground, so that there will be no degrading of the area. that he decided to embark on the initiative to boost shrimp farming and check the decline in shrimp production in the wild. According to him, shrimp catching in the wild has reduced considerably because of coastal pollution and gradual explosion of the mangrove area.

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