The Lagos State Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria (LASCAFAN) has disclosed plans for the adoption of the Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) as alternative fish feed in the sector to reduce production cost.
The LASCAFAN Chairman, Mr Michael Oke-tojinu, disclosed this in an interview on Wednesday in Lagos.
BSFL are an alternative source of protein for aquaculture, animal feed, and pet food, used to compost waste or convert the waste into animal feed.
Waste streams include fresh manure and food wastes of both animal and vegetable origin.
Fly larvae are among the most efficient animals at converting biomass into feed.
Oke-tojinu said in order to address the growing cost of raw materials for fish feed, the sector would adopt the BSFL as alternative feed for fish cultivation.
“We are currently tapping into the black soldier fly larvae for alternative feeds for our farms to address the rising cost of feeds.
“We are encouraging our farmers to go into the production of the BSF larvae in large quantities to meet up production needs.
“The adoption of the BSF larvae for fish feed is quite feasible, all we need to do is to get the technology across to more farmers so we can have more people producing that to meet up with the quantities we need,” Oke-tojinu said.
According to him, the production capacity of the BSFL is currently low as most local farmers are yet to be trained on this technology.
“What we are currently producing is not enough for commercial purposes, so we need to step up production to cut down price of feed production.
“We intend to train local farmers on this feed production techniques and when we train them on the production of the BSFL feed, then we will be able to produce on a commercial basis.
“We look forward to fully adopting BSFL feed for fish farming so we can produce on a commercial basis and cut down the cost of feed in the aquaculture sector,” he said.
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