Heston Chef meets Aqua Shop owners

Top Knightsbridge chef and Heston Blumenthal’s brilliant No2 Ashley Palmer-Watts is in Western Kenya with Farm Africa, spending time with the communities who live by fishing or farming fish around Lake Victoria.

One of the high spots for the young gastro star yesterday was meeting entrepreneur Saul Odenyo who has set up an Aqua Shop in Farm Africa’s network  and is now supplying fish farmers with support, training in their ventures.

Ashley Also met Lake Victoria fishermen and heard how some are moving from harvesting the wild, dwindling shoals and moving instead towards the sustainable fish farming pioneered in Kenya by Farm Africa.

Ashley, who is travelling to the Farm Africa project as an ambassador of the hospitality industry in an effort to raise awareness of the challenges facing African farmers and the solutions Farm Africa is coming up with ,  said of Farm Africa’s Aqua Shop and fishpond enterprise: “This charity project seems a really sensible way to set people up to sustain their own futures. Fish suppliers and chefs in the UK need to be aware of it – we live in an incredibly privileged world where we don’t have these issues. Every little helps because it is a massive cause. “

Read Ashley’s diary in video, pictures and his own words