Abstract

Aquaculture remains one of the fastest-growing agro-industrial activities in the last four decades and is projected to outpace population growth. Nigeria is the second-largest aquaculture producer in Africa with a production output of about 300, 000 tons annually and largely dominated by catfish culture. Aquaculture development in Nigeria was primarily driven by socio-economic objectives such as supplementary income generation, improvement of nutrition in rural locations and employment creation. Despite the potential impacts of the fisheries and aquaculture resources, the sector is however still confronted with numerous challenges including the high cost of inputs, use of unimproved breeds in aquaculture, need for improved access to finance and most especially, the high cost of feeds amongst others. The aim of this review paper is, therefore, to deepen our understanding of these challenges while also proffering noteworthy recommendations that would leverage aquatic food systems capacity to contribute to the attainment of some sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Nigeria in the coming years. Lack of trained personnel in areas of aquaculture nutrition, feed formulation and processing, and machine operators is among the biggest challenges faced in the aquaculture industry in Nigeria amongst others. And so definite practical steps need to be taken so that the basic needs of the populace for food security and means of poverty alleviation amongst other social development goals can be met.