Farmers bank on stimulus to serve ready fish market
Recirculation tanks at Mr Otieno Okello’s farm in Maseno, Kisumu County. The Ministry of Fisheries says aquaculture has increased national fish production to more than 20, 0000 metric tonnes yearly. Photo/Jacob Owiti
Kisumu County is slowly turning the hyacinth menace on its head.
Business people who relied on fishing and related services are using the Government’s economic stimulus programme (ESP) to gain from the existing juicy fish demand in the lakeside town and its environs.
The obnoxious weed has turned the lake into a map of inaccessible green, keeping transporters and the fishing community at bay. While many people resigned to fate saying hyacinth is a curse, others are thinking outside the box and gaining from it.
Kisumu, a lakeside town, has a ready demand for fish, a delicacy that is preferred in the region and across East Africa. Otieno Okello, a banker, is one of the many farmers in Kisumu County who have invested in aquaculture in a small farm near Maseno Township.
Collaborating with the Ministry of Fisheries, Mr Okello uses recirculation technology to produce more than 70,000 fingerlings per month which is fed into the ESP-implementing sites. At Sh3 each, the farmer says he makes more than Sh200,000 a month.
Using 15 by eight metre greenhouses and plastic tanks as holding systems, the farmer has demonstrated that the earnings from aquaculture can be more profitable than lake fishing.
“The fingerlings from my farm have been sufficient to stock more than 1,200 fish ponds in the county; this has raised my monthly earnings to more than Sh200,000 with each fingerling selling at Sh3,” Mr Otieno said about his Sh15 million investment.
Prices of fish have been rising due to limited supply occasioned by overexploitation of breeding sites in the lake and the weed.
With an estimated annual catch of 200,000 metric tonnes from the lake, aquaculture has become more popular in the region, partly with the ESP that was targeting, among others, overfishing in Lake Victoria.
Acquiring pelleting machines for every county has reduced significantly the headache of feeds. The machines have made it possible for the farmers to make their own feeds.
“The idea of introducing pelleting machines has saved a lot because there are times farmers are forced to import fish feeds from outside the country, which is expensive and hampered by an unstable supply of the commodity,” Mr Otieno said.
The phase three of the ESP has seen a great increase in fish harvests from farms in the county, making about 80 per cent of the fish supplied in hotels within the region.
Michael Obadha, Nyanza Province fisheries director, says the government’s economic stimulus programme has increased production of fish in the country from 4,000 metric tonnes to more than 20,000 metric tonnes annually.
“Income from aquaculture investments has made farmers get more returns compared to earnings from fishing in Lake Victoria,” Mr Obadha
The recirculation technology has elevated the region’s potential to meet the demand for fish. It involves the use of oxygen supply, greenhouses keeping a stable temperature for growth of fish, bio filtration chambers, helping in the balancing of oxygen and ammonia in the reservoirs.
Aquaculture farms provide training for various students whose institutions are not endowed with such levels of technology.
Other added advantages of aquaculture towards reducing the pain of dwindling victoria stocks is supporting export to the European Union countries, now receiving more than 17 million tonnes of fish from Africa. Out of this, Kisumu County farmers contributes 0.5 million metric tonnes of fish exported to the EU yearly.
Rural development
The ESP has created direct employment to more than 200 fish farmers in the County, short term employment to over 10,000 youths and indirect employment to over 5,000 other Kenyans in the fish business.
Aquaculture is growing fast in the county, partly because of the nutritional value of fish, provision of alternative income streams for the masses who have relied on poor performing agriculture.
Apart from increased supply of food, it is a cushion from income-generation shocks that has engulfed the region for a long time. Fish farmers are reaping from the trade with the reduced risk to production, increased farm sustainability and faster rural development.
