WHAT IT TAKES TO START A SIMPLE FISH FARMING

Fish farming, like most farm operations, requires hard work and exists in a supply and demand market. Finding a niche or becoming essential to an industry or market is key. … Once you are established as a trusted source, you’ll be able to expand your types of fish and potential customers.

Fish is a healthy and nutritious source of protein which is popular around the world. Industrial fish farming, or aquaculture, provides almost half the seafood around the world and this is expected to increase with time as more people are embracing fish farming due to its lucrative nature.

Starting a fish farm in Nigeria requires some reasonable amount of money. The amount you will need to start your own fish farming will depend on how big or small you want the farm to be.

In general term, fish farming requires adequate funding both for the start-up, maintenance, medication and feeding.

There are major expenses when it comes to starting or running a fish farm. Below are some Fish Farming project/setup cost for each of them;

• Land: land is one of the most important thing to start with. You need a better site to situate your fish farm. Land might cost you high depending on your location.
• Construction of ponds: Fish farming requires different sizes of ponds. You will need about 2 to 4 ponds to start with and each will cost you some money to construct.
• Buying or hatching fingerlings: fingerlings are those small fishes (about one to 2 weeks old) needed for the breeding.
• Feeding: feeding is a major and recurring expenses in fish farming. You will have to spend money on buying feeds for your fishes
• Plumbing: a good fish farm must have ponds that has good plumbing construction for easily pumping water in and out of the ponds (inlet and outlet facility).
• Watering: water is a very important substance in fish farming. No fish farming can do better without having a good source of water supply.

As such, you will need a good water supply to the ponds for easy change of water from the ponds and that will extract a different cost.

I spoke to a friend whose dad started a fish farming business. He was able to give me an estimate of what he used to start the farming.

Sample of Fish Farm Starting Cost.

Item/Project	Amount in Figures (Naira)
Land	N150,000
Construction of ponds	N100,000
Buying/hatching fingerlings	N15,000
Feeding	N30,000 per month
Plumbing	N50,000
Water	N300,000

Another Cost of fish farming production from a small scale fish farmer.

LAND= 200,000

MATERIALS

1. 150, 9 inches block@300/block= N45,000.
2. 10 bags of cement@3500/bag= N35,000
3. 1 load gravel= N15,000
4. 1 load sand= N12,000
5. Workmanship= 30,000

Total= N137,000

Operational Requirements

1. 1000 juvenile fish@30/fish= 30,000
2. Assuming 10% mortality total number is fish is 900
3. A single juvenile fish will consume a feed worth N300 to get to table size= 300×900= 270,000.
4. Water and pumping machine= N100,000

Total= 300,000

Total cost= 300,000 + 200,000+ 137,000 = 637,000.

Average expected weight after 5 months is 1kg.

Table size catfish is sold between N1200-N1300. 1200×900= 1,080,000

Total revenue- Total cost= N1,080,00 – 737,000 = N443,000.

Kindly note that the cost of production will reduce as continuous farming is done.