Fish farming growing steadily

 

By John Kasozi
FISH farming in Uganda is experiencing a 500% growth rate per annum, says Dick Nyeko, the commissioner for Fisheries, department of fisheries resources in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries. Since independence, Uganda’s fishing industry has been growing steadily. It is the second-most important foreign exchange earner after coffee, contributing 16% of the country’s export revenue.

Farmers learning about fish farming at

St. Jude Training Centre in Masaka, recently

The increase in domestic fish consumption as a result of population growth and high export demand, has pushed capture fisheries close to unsustainable supply and is threatening its existence.

There is evidence of overfishing in some water bodies while the Nile Perch, a carnivore, is causing devastating effects in the fish bio-diversity of Lake Victoria and Kyoga. As a result, the average annual per capita consumption of fish dropped to 10kg in the 1980s, from 13kg earlier on. Therefore, Nyeko says the country’s future competitiveness in fisheries will require increasing fish production to between 50% and 60%. He says in 10 years to come, Uganda can produce 1,000,000 tonnes of fish on a sustainable basis if steps are taken to reduce Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing.

IUU and smuggling pose a big challenge to the industry since fish is harvested illegally. However, eight boats are now in place to curb illegal fishing and smuggling.

The fishing industry is characterised by two parts; the capture and fish farming (aquaculture). The capture currently dominates the industry and accounts for the majority of export earnings.

Fish farming was introduced in Uganda in the late 1950s. Currently, it comprises about 12,000 farmers who have about 20,000 ponds with one or more fish species.

Nyeko says 50 semi-intensive commercial fish farmers have emerged, taking up 10,000 square metres of water for aquaculture.

Production from ponds currently averages about 2,000 tonnes a year, contributing about 1% to Uganda’s fish production. Pond aquaculture has already been proven feasible in 17 districts.

Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association members such as Ngege Limited, Green Fields, Gomba Fishing Industry and Uganda Fish Packers have taken on fish farming.

Digo Tugumisirize, the proprietor of Sunfish Farm, says in addition to breeding and fish farming, they also make fish feeds.

“According to our on-going research, locally-made feeds have proved to be better than imported ones,” Tugumisirize says Prudence Alituha, a researcher from Makerere University, says fish fries and fingerings that are fed on locally-made feeds grow faster than those fed on American (Ziegler) and South African feeds.

The feeds are being experimented to find out the most suitable for fish because most fish farmers have lost trust in imported feeds, which are also expensive.

Given the combined potential of pond and river-based aquaculture, commercial aquaculture appears to be the best strategy for building a competitive fishing industry.

Ponds are fertilised using organic and inorganic manure such as poultry and animal manures, kitchen wastes and green leaves, with occasional use of supplementary feeds consisting of maize and rice bran.

Nyeko says production from small-scale fish farmers is still low due to a number of reasons.

“Farmers are not organised to take advantage of bulk purchases and marketing facilities. There is lack of an efficient supply to the market chain,” he says.

In order to achieve its target of having 10% of the fish exports coming from aquaculture, the Government embarked on stocking fish ponds with three million fish fries between September 2001 and March 2003. According to a recent Food African Organisation report, the contribution of aquaculture to total world fisheries rose from 19% in 1994 to 26% in 2000.

With many of the world’s capture fisheries being exploited, aquaculture now accounts for 30% of global fish production and is projected to rise to 41% by 2020.