By Wisdom Mumera
Zimbabwe, Harare. ( News Of The South)- 2014 – Aquaculture is becoming the fastest growing food-producing sector in the country and with latest figures for worldwide aquaculture showing it contributing 35 % of total fish production New Partnerships for Africa’s Development(NEPAD) says.
“This has been an astonishingly fast growth rate from only 16 % of total production some few years ago but in Zimbabwe there is still much room for improvement because the figures are still low”.
“In sub-Saharan Africa aquaculture supplies around 3 % of fish production and African aquaculture is dominated by production of protein for human consumption and the contribution of aquaculture to total fisheries production varies sharply from country to country”, it says in a report on the state of the fishing industry.
According to Aquaculture Zimbabwe (AZ) this is a result of planned responses to declining natural fish stocks.
“The aquaculture sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the worldwide and part of this trend is attributable to a planned response to a consistently declining natural fish stocks in major water bodies and also due to the challenges of feeding an increasing world population”.
Malcolm Dickson, senior scientist at the organisation said aquaculture has the potential to close the gap of fish shortage even more.
“Through aquaculture Egypt produces over one million tons of farmed fish, supplying 60 percent of all fish eaten by its people. It is by far the cheapest source of animal protein, affordable to all but the very poorest”.
“Fish farming has been around in sub-Saharan Africa for more than half a century, yet still contributes little to the region’s food and nutrition security”.
“What the rapid growth of Egyptian aquaculture shows us is that with sufficient commitment, hurdles can be overcome as conditions there are far from ideal — Egypt is desperately short of water and suitable land for fish farming, while temperatures are too low for fish growth in winter”, he said.
Dickson said the development of the aquaculture sector is an important aspect of improving the livelihoods of millions of Africans and also a need for improved governance and management systems.
“Collaboration between different stakeholders and targeted investments in infrastructure and marketing is important to accelerate the growth of aquaculture”, he said.
Locally AZ has been spearheading aquaculture projects around the country as it seeks to increase fish farms in areas such as Masvingo.
According to WorldFish, the international agency focusing on fish, the freshwater eco-regions such as Lake Kariba are characterized by persistent poverty, high dependence on aquatic resources to provide food security and livelihoods.
“These significant new pressures have the potential to lead to broader social conflict if not addressed adequately, such as a further increase in the number of local resource users, through population growth, migration and displacement.
“It can also lead to commercial exploitation of limited resources and competition over water for agriculture and hydropower”, it said.
These issues can however be dealt with through the creation of fish farming projects.
According to the organisation approximately 200 million Africans rely on fish as an important part of their diet and ten million households directly derive income from fish production, processing or trade.
Fisheries also provide livelihoods for over 10 million Africans, many of whom are small-scale operators supplying food to local and sub-regional markets.
Per capita consumption in sub-Saharan Africa is however still the lowest in all regions at 8.3 kg per year.
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