Fish farming in Nigeria: University scholarship helps student to fund research trip to Africa

University of Northampton student Blessing Katampe, who is undertaking a PhD in Aquaculture at Moulton College, recently returned from a fishy fact finding mission to Nigeria.

As part of her PhD, Blessing is investigating the contribution of aquaculture – or fish farming – to poverty alleviation and food security among the rural poor. Blessing wishes to examine how the world can feed its growing population with animal protein, and she believes that aquaculture will play a big role in combating issues relating to food insufficiencies if appropriately initiated.

Blessing won funding from the University of Northampton’s Chancellor’s Fund to help finance the research trip, and she spent eight weeks in Abuja, Nigeria, talking to fish farmers and workers. The trip allowed her to take a first-hand look at the fish farming business that takes place in the country.

Dr Wanda McCormick, Research and Knowledge Transfer Co-ordinator at Moulton College, commented: “Blessing has been making very good progress so far with her PhD studies but due to the cultural differences in communication in Nigeria compared to the UK, it was essential that Blessing visited the farms to meet people in person in order to gather the type of information that her project relies upon.”

Corinna Coleman, Scholarships Officer at the University, spoke about how enthusiastic they were about Blessing’s travel: “The members of the Chancellor’s Fund Panel were unanimous in their support of Blessing’s trip to Nigeria, and thought it was a great example of why the fund exists.”

Blessing commented “I have learnt a great deal from this trip to Abuja. I wish to thank the Chancellor’s fund for giving me the opportunity to travel to Nigeria.”

The Chancellor’s Fund is a bi-annual fund providing current University of Northampton students with awards of between £100 and £1,000. To find out more, please visit the Chancellor’s Fund page.