Mchinji touted as biggest potential for aquaculture in Central Region

 

By Owen Zayambika, MANA

Mchinji is said to have the biggest potential for fish farming in Central Region among the districts not situated along Lake Malawi.

According to recent data from the Fisheries Department, Mchinji has the most number of fish farmers, fish ponds and largest land where aquaculture activities are taking place among Central Region districts not situated along the lake.

Mchinji District Fisheries Officer, Gertrude Kajado said currently the district has 553 fish farmers, 716 fish ponds and over 10 hectares of land for fish farming.

Kajado attributed the current progress in fish farming to good partnership between her office and stakeholders in the district.

“That Mchinji is one of the districts with most capacity for fish farming in Central Region is encouraging because if this potential is well utilised, we could forget about importing fish products from neighbouring Zambia,” she said.

The fisheries officer said it was motivating to see how keen people are on doing fish farming in Mchinji.

“Besides, I also owe this success story to good partnership with stakeholders like German International Cooperation (GIZ), World Vision, Concern World Wide and Churches in Action for Relief and Development (CARD) among others,” she said.

Director of Fisheries in the Ministry of Agriculture, Friday Njaya said currently government is using such fish farming potential to supplement ‘capture fisheries’ which has recently been experiencing low catches.

“I would agree that Mchinji, like other districts including Chitipa, Nkhata Bay, Rumphi, Zomba, Phalombe, Mulanje and Thyolo have great potential for pond-based aquaculture in addition to Lake Malawi.

“Therefore, the present National Fisheries Aquaculture Policy looks at aquaculture as a way of supplementing capture fisheries which has seen reduced quantities of fish these days,” he said.

Njaya said the increase in aquaculture will lead to substitution of import of tilapia, the basis for government’s promotion of aquaculture production at both small and large scale levels.

Among the districts in Central Region, aquaculture data shows Mchinji has the most number of fish farmers (553), followed by Lilongwe with 372 farmers.

In terms of land for fish farming, the data shows Mchinji also leads with 10.5 hectares of land followed by Lilongwe with 8.2 hectares.