Life has its way of guiding our path and it's funny how we end up finding happiness in things we never thought we had any connection to until a certain stage in our lives. Back then, my dream as a kid was to be either a footballer or soldier and I remember slipping into fantasies a thousand times about these professions but my journey through life didn't lead me to any of them despite my struggles.
Life led me into becoming a fish farmer, a profession that I never thought of and if someone had told me that I would become one as a kid, I would have fought the person badly. So far, I have been grateful for embracing this profession, and other than my engagement on Hive, that's what I do to earn a living. Being a fish farmer is about raising fish for consumption and I am only specialized with rearing of catfish.
I was reading the post of fellow Hive members earlier today and I couldn't help but laugh when I read in his post that he always wanted to become a soldier and today, he is a colleague in this farming business. It got me wondering if everyone who wanted to become a soldier and didn't, ended up as a fish farmer.
As unpleasant as it might sound to the ears of people who can't go a week without eating catfish and also think of fish farming as a dirty business, fish farming is one of the lucrative businesses out there and the importance of fish farmers or farmers in general can't be quantified in the world today.
It's an good business to get into as long as you understand how things works even though it has its challenges just like many other professions out there. Being Nigerian, fish farmers go through one big challenge which is electricity because of the fish demand for clean water always, and once that is taken care of, I don't see much of a problem as long as you feed your fish healthy food and they are growing perfectly.
I have been in the business for some time now and I grow different sizes of fish depending on the demand at that moment. I raise the table size (big sizes) and also the melange(small) that are ready for consumption. Aside from the market demand, other factors determine the sizes I choose to sell and I believe every fish farmer does this as well.
I mentioned that the business has its struggles earlier because a lot of time, the unexpected happens, and sometimes, the unexpected are things that are beyond your control. They are things you might not even notice until the tragedy strikes and you will begin to wonder what went wrong. I believe a lot of businesses experience this as well so the "unexpected" I am saying doesn't mean the business is dangerous.
If you start interviewing fish farmers today, many of them will have stories to tell but we remain in the business not just to make money but to also ensure the availability of catfish in the market.
I sell my catfish live, smoked, and even as pepper soup based on demand by my customers. The journey so far has been awesome and as a fish farmer, learning never stops for us. We learn every day to boost our profit, produce healthy fish, and also prepare for the unexpected.
Being a farmer in another life wouldn't be a bad idea because it's one of the professions in the world but I would love to be a big-scale farmer and the type that doesn't panic when electricity becomes an issue because spending on fuel makes business unstable especially when your competitors have good electricity, they sale are the normal price which might be difficult for you to do so since you need to make profit. Imagine a world without farmers, it would be impossible for people to survive and as it stands, farm produce are one of the products that people can't do without buying so making money is guaranteed if the unexpected doesn't happen.
Overall, I have grown to love the profession and it's fantastic.
All images belong to me.