Aqua Shops take leading role in training fish farmers

Farm Africa’s Aqua Shops Project has made impressive progress since its first six Aqua Shops were opened earlier this year.

Project background

The project is helping to address rapidly dwindling stocks of wild fish in Lake Victoria which provides more than 90% of Kenya’s total fish supply. Reduced supply means the price of fish has risen steeply in western Kenya where almost 60% of households are dependent on fish, either directly or indirectly, as a source of food and income.

The Kenyan government has responded to reduced fish supply and rising prices by actively promoting aquaculture and small-scale fish-farming. To increase the scale of fish-farming, it has built 4800 new fish ponds throughout western Kenya.

Farm Africa’s Aqua Shops Project, funded by the UK Government’s Department for International Development, is designed to support the Kenyan government’s promotion of aquaculture. The shops, situated in the Samia and Nyakach districts of western Kenya, are not only supplying existing commercial and small-scale fish farmers with essentials such as fish feed and manure; they are also vital hubs offering technical advice, training and market linkages to 1,000 smallholder farmers interested in setting up their own fish-farming businesses.

Through its project Farm Africa hopes to achieve more than address food security problems caused by shortages of fish in western Kenya. The project also seeks to have a real long-term impact by equipping Kenyan smallholder farmers with new skills in a form of agriculture likely to have a sustainable and long-term future: there is huge potential for significantly scaling-up production of farmed fish in Kenya.

As well as providing farmers with technical skills, the project is also teaching farmers how to link up their new businesses to important markets in nearby Kampala and Nairobi where surpluses can be sold to generate much needed additional income.

How our Aqua Shops are transforming the lives of Kenyan fish farmers

The shops are taking a leading role in providing information on best-practice to fish farmers to help them build profitable and sustainable aquaculture enterprises. To date, six fact sheets on fish pond liming, fish diseases, pond management, pond fertilisation, pond stocking and harvesting have been produced in relevant languages and are being distributed to fish farmers. To build trust with the fish farming communities, Farm Africa has also produced posters which certify that aquashop operators have been fully trained and able to offer authentic adviceand training. The posters are displayed prominently on the fronts of all shops which have fully trained staff.

To underpin the long-term viability of our project, Farm Africa has identified and contacted approximately 1,000 farmers likely to become fish farmers. The farmers are trained by both Farm Africa project staff and the owners of the shops. Ultimately, to make the project sustainable, all training will be undertaken by the Aqua Shops owners.

In recent weeks 72 farmers have been trained in basic husbandry and organisational development techniques relevant to fish-farming, making a total of 544 farmers trained since the project began.

The farmers are organised into groups of up to 15 with a representative from each group being given regular refresher courses. The classes ensure that crucial knowledge is both properly understood and shared within the wider group, ensuring the long-term survival of key knowledge and skills within the community.

Official praise for the project

The Kenyan government has acknowledged the impact of the aquashops in raising food production and business capacity:

“Aquashops have really trained our people in as the farmers are now well versed with fish-farming. Through the aquashops, around 201 individual farmers in Nyakach district have been trained on fish-farm husbandry practices, group dynamics and entrepeneurship”.  Anne Mokoro, Nyakach District Fisheries Officer