There is another serious challenge I have seen among catfish farmers. A situation where several amount is spent on feeding of fish only for everything to be lost. With all hard work; changing of water, sorting/grading, ensuring fish are fed to satiation, disease control, plus other operational cost etc, and yet it is like little or nothing is working except for working for the feed manufacturers.

I have even noticed another challenge, at least recently, despite the general consensus among catfish farmers that members should 'hatch' and produce their fingerlings themselves or insist on the 'first set' from a reputable breeders (this is what is making waves among grow-out farmers today); all with an intention of getting the best stock and able to determine the growth of the stock- combined with aggressive feeding with both imported and locally formulated feeds to maximize profit, yet little is still been achieved.

Even more disturbing is the fact that given this same set of fish a 'particular' locally formulated feed the fish suddenly pick up growth(This is a practical experiment carried out in one of the farm I supervise). I know other farmers can really relate with my challenge and can deduce what am driving at. To my mind, this is a very big issue. Having stocked the right fish, given the proper management, a farmer should get a fair share of his labour, a good return on his investment.

Let me state the conclusion of the whole matter here: It is not just the quality of fingerlings stocked as generally believe by farmers(I seriously believe this contribute a lot though) or the failure of management or poor water quality that results in the poor growth of our fish, much more than that is the quality of some of the feeds we have in the market. Feeding alone sweep about 70% percent of farmers operational cost and yet nobody is asking question. How do you explain why some 'big' farms prefer to import their feeds(I would not want to mention names) or why are some brand of feeds reserved for the privileged few and the left-overs for an average farmers. I know a brand of feed that produce different quality of feed for different market. This isn't too good enough.

I challenge our feeds manufacturer to improve on the quality of their feeds. An average feed cost about #4000 and yet farmers aren't getting value for their money. Farmers do not have problem buying, so far we have the right content. Also farmers should be watchful of the quality of feeds they use. There are different nutritional content for different crumbs of feeds for different sizes of fish. Let us endeavour to stick to the right feed for our fish...

All the best.

You have raised a valid question which probably our government needs to look into. Why do I bring in d govt issue? There are so many adulterated feeds in the market & nobody is controlling them. The other day I bought a fake Artemia from the market & two separate productions were wasted couple with money used to buy the feed. Everything went down the drain. My brother what is the way forward. Everybody cannot compound its feed and besides where is the fund?

ajoo17:
You have raised a valid question which probably our government needs to look into. Why do I bring in d govt issue? There are so many adulterated feeds in the market & nobody is controlling them. The other day I bought a fake Artemia from the market & two separate productions were wasted couple with money used to buy the feed. Everything went down the drain. My brother what is the way forward. Everybody cannot compound its feed and besides where is the fund?

Thank you brother for your input. I think the awareness is already mounting and this is one of such avenue.