The Farm Africa Blog: Farm Africa expands fish farming in Kenya

A new grant will enable Farm Africa’s aquaculture programme in western Kenya to expand and help more fish farmers to develop their businesses rearing fish in government-dug ponds.

With the financial support offered by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Nairobi, we’re working to develop a sustainable aquaculture industry in Kenya and double the country’s consumption of fish.

Farm Africa has been working with fisheries since 2011, as we believe that aquaculture has great potential to boost the incomes and the health of rural farmers and their families. In recent years, overfishing and pollution in Lake Victoria have led to a 64% decline in fish stocks, and the price of fish has rocketed.

But the demand for fish has always been high, and aquaculture can not only prove very lucrative for small and medium-scale farmers, but also provide an affordable source of protein that their families need to stay healthy.

Farm Africa has already worked with over 3,500 fish farmers in western Kenya, helping them to make a profit from their fish. In the latest phase of our work, we’ll look to draw on the aquaculture projects we’ve already run, and using the expertise of Dutch partners, work with a further 1,100 farmers to establish the foundations of a competitive industry based on thousands of mid-size enterprises.

And with the creation of demonstration sites, a further 8,000 small-scale farmers will benefit from the increased food security and cash that fish farming generates.

We also work with agrodealers and traders to make sure that fish farmers can get expert training, and that there’s a market for their produce. Studies have shown that most Kenyans prefer wild fish to farmed fish, but we’re working to change this perception, and helping traders to sell larger volumes of farmed fish, which will take the pressure off sites such as Lake Victoria.