04
DW AGRICULTURE
EVOLVING
DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY BASED COMMERCIAL FISHERY CULTURE IN NIGERIA
DW Agriculture is consulting with communities and fish farmers across the Niger Delta to develop a community based commercial fishery culture to address the challenges of fish production and marketing in Nigeria.
DW Agriculture is now at the advanced design stage of developing an aquaculture project to positively impact 5,000 families across 6 states of the Niger Delta. The project’s objective is to deliver a total production of 100 million fish per annum, thereby directly adding 100 billion naira to the local economy.
The project consists of a 100 million per annum fish fingerling hatchery, a feed mill to support production, and processing facilities consisting of flash freezers, dryers, and smokers to service the local, and eventually, the international market. This holistic approach to integrate all factors of delivery ensures reliability of production, and provides superior economics to participating communities.
Current activities are focused on:
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Identifying potential participating communities
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Strengthening relationships with state entities who are willing to provide support to the project
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Further implantation of pilot projects to provide both technical proof of concept, and validate the commercial terms behind the project plan
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Training of the requisite staff to enable broader project development
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Formalizing relationships with technical support and equipment providers
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Engaging with funding providers who could potentially support both the central project infrastructure and microfinance to the out-grower communities.
Full project construction/implementation is expected to commence the fourth quarter of 2018.
OBUDU PLATEAU FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FARMERS COOPERATIVE
We have recently worked with farmers, community members and the clan leadership on Obudu Plateau to establish a Fruits and Vegetables Farmers Cooperative amidst much excitement and expectations. Individual members of the cooperative already produce a wide range of temperate fruits and vegetables including, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, parsley, mint, apples, cabbage, coriander, lettuce among others.
Obudu Plateau is on the Oshie Ridge of the Sankwala Mountain range, in Cross River State, in the South-South of Nigeria. The Plateau borders Cameroon where the same mountain range with similar characteristics extends.
The Obudu Plateau is spread over an area of over 40 square miles (100 km2) and rises to about 1,600 meters above sea level on average including a peak of about 1,716 meters.
The climate on the Obudu Plateau is relatively cold, experiencing a semi-temperate climate, with temperatures ranging between 26 °C (78.8 °F) to 32 °C (89.6 °F) during the dry season of November to January. The rainy season in June to September is colder with temperature lows of between 4 °C (39.2 °F) to 10 °C (50.0 °F) recorded.
The plateau receives heavy and abundant rainfall during the rainy season. A total of 4,200 millimeters of rainfall is received on the plateau between April and November.
Prior to the establishment of the cooperative, farmers had tried a variety of temperate type vegetables with varying degrees of disappointment. The challenges range from inadequate access to water during the dry season to inexperience and little or no training as well as poor market access and logistics.
DWA is now working with the farmers through the cooperative to provide training, credit, seeds and crop care products as well as water and market access.
The most crucial element of this operation is to scale up production and logistics support. Many of the people in the six villages that make up the Becheve clan still engage in the farming of staples like cassava. Because land is scarce on the plateau the communities need to produce more high value crops to improve their standards of living. Together with the cooperative this is what we aim to achieve while bringing fresh exotic produce to the Nigerian market at best price.
