Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
15 December 2008
Maputo — The fish farming currently practiced as a subsistence activity by small Mozambican producers cold be transformed into a profitable household business, according to a team of consultants from INFOSA (Information Services on Fisheries in Southern Africa).
This regional organisation has been hired by the Mozambican Fisheries Ministry to draw up a Development Plan for Small Scale Aquaculture.
"A Chinese proverb says that it's better to teach someone to fish than to give him fish", said the head of the INFOSA team, Satish Hanoomanjee on Monday. "But in the model for aquaculture as now practiced in Mozambique, fish is being given to people, We found people who work a year to produce five kilos of fish. Is this any way to fight hunger?"
He said that the people practicing fish farming in the provinces visited by the team (Zambezia, Manica, Sofala, Gaza and Maputo) are doing so in a precarious fashion. Some began their activity with funding from local NGOs, or with loans that they have not been able to repay.
To change this scenario, the consultants argue that state intervention is necessary, through allocating a package of assistance, including access to land (on which the fish tanks can be set up), access to credit and to technical support, and training of the would-be producers.
. The draft plan presented by the team at a Maputo workshop on Monday states that, in an initial phase, an investment of five million dollars would be required (not including the credit component), but the plan would only benefit 100 producers.
"We want aquaculture to be a household business", said Hanoomanjee, "We don't want small scale producers just to be workers. We want them to have benefits from their production"..
The draft plan, to be implemented over five years as from 2009, also suggests that the small scale producers should work closely with industries from which they would acquire the necessary inputs. Those same industries, the plan suggests, should guarantee transport and marketing facilities for aquaculture production.
According to the Director of the Institute for the Development of Aquaculture, Isabel Omar, there are currently about 7,000 small scale fish farmers in Mozambique. Their total production is just 100 tonnes of fish a year.
On average each of these farmers produces less than 20 kilos of fish a year. Current figures for consumption are that the average Mozambican living on the coast eats 12 kilos of fish a year, but the figure drops to two kilos a year inland.
It is believed that when the small producers are assisted, their annual yields will rise gradually to several hundred kilos, or even one to three tonnes of fish.
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