Source: Govt establishes 8 000 village fishponds | The Sunday Mail
Theseus Shambare
THE Government has established 8 000 village fishponds this year, which have since been stocked with more than 4,4 million fast-growing tilapia fingerlings under the Presidential Community Fisheries Scheme.
The initiative seeks to bolster national food and nutrition security. These fishponds are spread across 973 village business units (VBUs), 30 youth business units and 15 standard business units, which use solar-powered boreholes as sustainable water sources.
The programme follows the drought-affected 2023/2024 summer cropping season, which saw water levels in Lake Kariba, the country’s largest dam, among other bodies, go down significantly.
Kariba’s failure to reach full capacity has resulted in a 21 percent decline in kapenta production.
Kapenta are small fish rich in micronutrients.
In an interview with The Sunday Mail, Fisheries and Aquaculture Resources Department (FARD) director Mr Milton Makumbe said: “As you know, we are rolling out a multi-faceted approach in response to the effects of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon, and investment in aquaculture (fishpond and cage production) is the way to mitigation.
“Zimbabwe is blessed with underground water, which, if utilised well, can boost our aquaculture. Tilapia can be produced at household level to cover the gap created by the decline of production in our large water sources.”
The Government, he said, plans to establish at least two fishponds in each of the 35 000 VBUs that are being developed countrywide.
“Our main aim is to see the construction and stocking of 70 000 fishponds in all our 35 000 rural villages. This entails that each VBU will get at least two fishponds.
“With our target to establish at least 10 000 VBUs by the end of this year to early next year, it means we will have a total of 20 000 fishponds during the same period,” added Mr Makumbe.
FARD is currently carrying out fish farming training countrywide to onboard more smallholder farmers.
“We are doing training targeting organised groups of small-scale farmers. We have trained women and we are now training youths as we target to leave no village behind under our mantra ‘food everywhere, every day’,” he said.
Following the injection of US$500 000 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations into a project aimed at improving the quality and quantity of locally produced fish fingerlings through the refurbishment and expansion of Government hatcheries at Henderson, Makoholi and Matopos, fish production is expected to jump to 40 000 tonnes by 2025.
Mr Makumbe, however, bemoaned unsustainable fish farming practices contributing to the decline in kapenta production at Lake Kariba.
“Climate change is a contributor to fish tonnage declines at Kariba. And being the largest source of captured fish and kapenta in Zimbabwe, this has a highly significant impact on food security and livelihoods in the country.
“However, the largest contributor to declines in fish tonnage is illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing on this shared water body with Zambia.
“The amount of fishing rigs currently operating in Lake Kariba are three times higher than the sustainable number, contributing to overfishing.”
The Government is working on ensuring sustainable fishing habits are adopted.
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