Reps seek budgetary allocation for aquaculture centre

• It mandated the Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions to ensure a substantial allocation for the African Regional Aquaculture Centre in the 2024 Budget estimates
  

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On Thursday, the House of Representatives urged the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to investigate the challenges preventing the African Regional Aquaculture Centre from functioning and take steps to revive its operations.

The House also called on the ministry to identify both the immediate and underlying causes contributing to the current state of decline in the center.

In response, it mandated the Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions to ensure a substantial allocation for the African Regional Aquaculture Centre in the 2024 Budget estimates.

These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion titled ‘Call to activate the African Regional Aquaculture Centre in Omuihuechi Aluu, Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State,’ sponsored by Boniface Emerengwa, the lawmaker representing Emoba/Ikwere Federal Constituency, Rivers State.

The House noted that on May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu declared an emergency in the agricultural sector and food sufficiency in Nigeria.

The lawmaker, while leading the debate, said the House was aware that ARAC is a department of the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research established in 1980 with assistance from the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the United Nations Development Programme.

He noted that ARAC had a mandate of training senior and vocational aquaculture professionals to increase fish production through brackish water fish farming.

The House, he noted “is worried that the ARAC’s significant mandate has been neglected due to a lack of funds and previous administration’s abandonment, causing a shortage of trained personnel for the country’s fish sufficiency.

“The House is concerned that the last postgraduate programmes were discontinued in 2000 due to a lack of funds,” adding that “the reactivation of the postgraduate programmes and new courses are needed to meet current realities.”