Malawi’s Department of Fisheries has collaborated with its development partners in developing climate smart fish farming technologies that aim at conserving water during the rainy season to help practice fish farming throughout the year.
Among the technologies is the promotion of large-deep ponds locally known as Ulimi wa Nsomba wa Msunga Madzi, where the ponds act as water harvesting devices during the rainy season and water becomes available for fish farming throughout the year.
According to Principal Secretary in the Department, Steve Donda, impacts of climate change are becoming an emerging challenge to fish farming in Malawi, hence the department’s response to climate smart fish technologies.
He said, “One of the common effects includes bad rainfall patterns which come as a result of low rainfall thereby causing fish ponds to dry out. The Department at its research stations based in Domasi and Mzuzu is currently running research trials on fast growing fish species such as catfish, all male tilapias, selectively bred tilapias and promoting their use among fish farmers”.
Donda further said despite the fact that fish farming is growing in the country, there are still some factors that are hindering the fish industry, the major setback at present being the unavailability of cost effective high-quality fish feeds.
He said the cost of manufactured fish feeds is generally very high for an average fish farming entrepreneur thereby contributing significantly to the cost of fish production.
Another challenge is the inaccessibility of high quality fish seed (fingerlings), which results in farmers using poorly produced fingerings from their own harvests which are of low quality.
Donda said in order to address these challenges, government with support from various development partners is implementing research programs on improving quality of fingerlings as well as developing cost effective fish feed using locally available ingredients.
Fish production from fish farming increased from 801 tons in 2003 to 4,985 tons in 2015; the production has been derived from ponds and cages.
The current estimate is dominated by low value species such as Usipa and Utaka. Usipa contributes over 50% of the total production whereas high valued species such as Chambo and Ncheni used to dominate the fish industry in the previous two to three decades.
2016 Malawi News Agency