In 2012 I flew with Vinay Mathani, the Group Managing Director & CEO of Churchgate Group on Arik Air from Calabar to Lagos, during our conversation, he told me that ''People always assume that our biggest business in Nigeria is Real Estate (because of the Iconic buildings)

On Lagos skyline, but our biggest biggest is actually fisheries'', I later discovered that Churchgate Group (A company that was founded in 1968) owns a subsidiary called Ocean Fisheries Nigeria Limited that does 6,000 tonnes of Shrimps per annum and exports to the Intl market.

Nigeria has a coastline of 853 kilometres bordering on the Gulf of Guinea & the Atlantic Ocean; the Coastline has the Niger Delta & the Strand Coast, the Niger Delta extends 500km from Benin to Imo River, the Strand Coast extends 85km from Imo River to Cross River Estuary.

The Shrimp industry is worth $18bn annually growing at 3% per annum. There are the wild shrimp known as Penaeid (caught by marine trawlers), and there are the freshwater shrimps (Macrobrachium) caught on the hinterland.

I realized that all the major trawlers in Escravos, Forcados, Ramos, Pennington, Brass, Bartholomew and Calabar are mostly owned by Foreigners.

Atlantic Shimpers that has 70 fishing trawlers & that does 3,500 tonnes of Shrimps per annum is Incorporated in the Netherlands

But run by Indians, Ocean Front Fisheries owned by Churchgate Group is also owned by Indians. I always wonder how we Nigerians lack a food security bill that includes a common fisheries framework for the coastline across West Africa,

When disagreements over fishing rights between English and French fishermen in the UK Coastline that extends all the way to the North of France, has being a major thorn in the Common Fisheries Framework in the BREXIT negotiations ongoing in Brussels.

Now I checked in with the numbers; A pound of shrimp is $12. At 2,204 pounds which makes 1 tonne, Churchgate makes $158.6m exporting 6k tonnes of Shrimps from Nigeria yearly, while Atlantic Shrimpers makes $92.5m exporting 3,500 tonnes per annum.

I know there are challenges and risk;

* Piracy (The Nigerian Navy, Presidential Taskforce on Maritime Security & NIMASA has done a lot of work to reduce this)
* Capital cost of trawlers (setting up a dry dock, fuel bunker, cold storage, in house lab
* Insurance risk on vessels

But is there really anything good in life devoid of risks and challenges?

Can we use data, the will to win, incredible hardwork and commitment to global best practices, turn the tide?

Have a good evening.

Cc: @asemota Big Chief