Mr Adamu Mahmuda, a staff of Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in Gombe State, said he earned over N1 million from fish farming in 2023.
Mahmuda, who disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said civil servants could earn additional money through agriculture.
He said that depending on salary alone with the high cost of living would not help civil servants; hence the need to find an area of agriculture they could leverage to make additional income.
According to him, civil servants should invest more in agriculture to augment their salary and be able to provide for their households comfortably.
Mahmuda said going into agriculture as a civil servant would help one prepare better for retirement when salary stops coming.
He said he established his fish farm two years ago with N300,000 but had expanded the vocation.
“This fish farming is more than any salary if you invest well and acquire the right knowledge. You will never regret venturing into the vocation. My annual profit for now is more than N1m and remember I am just two years old in the business and just operating on a small scale, being a civil servant.”
He said fish farming remained an area that government at all levels could use to empower youths and create more jobs towards addressing unemployment challenges in the state and country.
Mahmuda advised graduates to save some money while undergoing their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), so they could start fish farming after passing out, no matter how small, and then grow the business.
“One hundred fingerlings, plastic bowl, water and some knowledge about fish farming are enough to start something.”
Mahmuda advised the Gombe State government to empower youths in the state in the area of fish farming as a way of providing jobs for them.
“The money a youth will make from fish farming if he is provided the right support, is far more than what any state government can pay such youth.
“And the impact of such empowerment on food security effort of government will be great too,” he said. (NAN)
