Description:

Bridging the Data Gap for an Evidence-based National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy (2024-2028)

Background:

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, and with high incidence of malnutrition and food insecurity. Nigeria is importing about 40-45 percent of fish of its domestic consumption. However, there seems to be sufficient scope for Nigeria’s aquaculture value chain to respond to the high demand for fish. Nigeria is the largest catfish producer in the world and largest aquaculture producer in SSA, with vast natural resources, including an estimated large 835 km coastline. Thirteen lakes and reservoirs with a surface area of between 4000 ha and 550,000 ha have a total surface area of 853,600 ha and represent about one percent of the total area of Nigeria. Deltas and estuaries, with their saline wetlands have a total surface area of 858,000 ha, while freshwaters cover about 3,221,500 ha. Other water bodies, including small reservoirs, fishponds, and miscellaneous wetlands suitable for rice cultivation cover about 4,108,000 ha. Thus, the total surface area of water bodies in Nigeria, excluding deltas, estuaries, and miscellaneous wetlands suitable for rice cultivation-but not necessarily suitable for fish cultivation, is estimated to be about 14,991,900 ha or 149,919 km2 and constitutes about 15.9% of the total area of Nigeria. There is, however, limited data on the suitability of aquaculture.

Fast growth in catfish production in the last 15 years, but it plateaued since 2014 mainly due to increase in feed prices caused by Naira devaluation and high imported feed ingredient prices. Reliable data is lacking on the current aquaculture production. There is very little data and/or reliable data available to estimate the commercial as well as smallholder farmer-based feed production in the country. Hence projecting aquaculture production based on the use of feed is also difficult. However, the stakeholders are hoping to revive catfish (a major project is Fish4ACP by FAO) and to jumpstart tilapia production using new GIFT strain from WorldFish, with estimated growth to 800,000 tons in 2030 if right policies and investments are put in place. Other farmed species are also accounting for about 5% to 30% of aquaculture (based on NAERLS agricultural performance surveys and on FAOSTAT database, 2015-2021) – but very little data exist about them, the accuracy of the available production estimates, and how we can expand production in a sustainable way are pertinent issues.

Artisanal fisheries are where the bulk of domestic production comes from (99% of capture fisheries; 70% of national production), and there is very little data on catch and the communities involved, how production can expand in a sustainable way, how to reduce loss and waste along the value chain, and how to improve co-management/community-based management and adoption of sustainable practices, among others. Aside from supply, there is even more scarce data on fish demand, preferences, price and cross elasticities of demand, food choices and substitutability. All these have implications on nutrition security and strategies to support local production, diversification, and commercialization.

With stagnating aquaculture production since 2014 and with continuously dwindling capture fisheries, stakeholders are asking these questions: How can policies be reformed to promote investments and accelerate growth in a sustainable way? How can the sector contribute more to employment generation, diet diversity, and nutrition security in the country? There is a strong request and demand for a new national fisheries and aquaculture policy that spells out the policy directions and guide decisions and investments for the sector.

In response, in 2022, the Federal Department of Fisheries (FDF) officially requested IFPRI and WorldFish to help in developing the national policy for the aquaculture and fisheries sector. In December 2022, FDF, IFPRI and WorldFish selected a drafting team, with expertise in the sector and policy processes. In early 2023, IFPRI conducted extensive literature review and secondary data analysis to inform the policy draft; drafting team produced several iterations of the policy document draft; several team meetings and discussions and iterations of the policy draft. In August 22-23, 2023, the first stakeholder consultation was organized that enabled very useful inputs from stakeholders to the policy directions and strategies. However, from the literature and the general presentations, it is clear that there are major data gaps on consumption, production, productivity, profitability, growth potential, different aspects of value chains, most especially among the other (non-catfish and non-tilapia) species), and strategies that work and do not work, among others.

This assignment will help to fill some of these data gaps and generate useful evidence to guide the further design of the national policy.

Research questions:

1. What is the current production, profitability, value chain competitiveness, and potential sources of growth of other diversified aquaculture species (non-tilapia and non-catfish)? How can we accelerate the growth in this sub-sector?

2. What is the production, profitability, challenges, and opportunities in the aquafeed sector? What are the potential sources of growth? How can we accelerate the sustainable expansion of the aquafeed sector?

3. What is the status of aqua clusters and cooperatives, their challenges and opportunities? How many of them and what is their market share? How do we best support them so that they can be engines of growth? What strategies would work to accelerate their growth?

Scope of work:

The lead consultant will lead the data collection and field work, data analysis, and report writing to answer the above research questions. This work will involve the following:

1. Key informants’ interviews and rapid market appraisal to get data on prices; trade; production; productivity; and number of producers and input suppliers; feed utilization; seed and fingerling status and suppliers (especially on other species to diversify the aquaculture production: Nile perch, carp, Aba, crustaceans, Pangasius spp, Brycinus spp, Heterotis spp, Chrysichthys spp, etc.)

2. Few case studies of different types of clusters and cooperatives, including those growing other farmed species (other than tilapia and catfish) to understand their operations, constraints, and entry points for policy support.

3. Key informants’ interviews of feed producers (commercial and small-scale) in major producing states.

The lead consultant will lead the questionnaire and research design, field work planning, sampling, interviews, data analysis, and report writing, with regular inputs and guidance from WorldFish and IFPRI researchers. An IFPRI research assistant will also support the lead consultant during the interviews and in data analysis.

Qualifications:

The lead consultant must have:

1. PhD in fisheries or aquaculture related fields

2. Proven track record of high-quality publications on aquaculture

3. At least 5 years of field work experience (interviews and surveys) with different actors in aquaculture value chains in Nigeria

4. Excellent in survey questionnaire design, qualitative / investigative interviews, market studies, and collection of quantitative / economic data from private sector actors

5. Evidence of excellent project management and delivery

6. Excellent communication and writing skills.

Requirements:

– Most recent CV

– Bio or recent contract indicating current daily rate.