Musika successfully conducted a smallholder fish farmer landscaping survey in which over 2,000 farmers were documented under The Aquaculture Technical, Vocational, and Entrepreneurship Training for Improved Private Sector and Smallholder Skills Project.
The fish farmer survey was one of the activities to be undertaken by Musika between 2018 and 2019 which will contribute towards achieving its key project output of “Enhancing the technical education, vocational and entrepreneurship skills of rural women, men, and youth smallholder fish farmers, and increasing their linkages to input and output markets and entrepreneurship opportunities through private sector extension support and service delivery”.
The survey was conducted across seven districts in Northern and Luapula Provinces including; Mbala, Mpulungu, Mporokoso, Luwingu, Mansa, Samfya and Kawambwa, in order to create a comprehensive profile of the smallholder fish farming community for sharing with private sector actors in the market. It also looked at the level of commercialisation, including availability or non-availability of supportive market infrastructure, cluster of farmers, and challenges faced.
“This data is for purposes of sharing with private actors, and is being shared on demand by those interested so as to assist them with decision making as they make plans to invest in the sector,” explained Musika Head of Corporate Affairs, Pamela Hamasaka.
Musika’s support to private sector actors in aquaculture that are willing and able to make investments in developing nascent smallholder fish farming sector includes supporting commercially oriented market research to identify and select commercial-oriented fish farmers for the provision of market services.
Musika also provides early stage investment support to private actors so as to bring down some of the initial costs and risks of investment, support towards the delivery of farmer training and extension services, and building capacity of aquaculture supply chain intermediaries including business and financial management training and creating linkages with supply chain partners.
“Despite the sub-sector being in its infancy stages, the goal has remained to commercialise activities along the fish value chain with emphasis on promoting fish farming as opposed to capture fisheries,” said Hamasaka.
Musika’s investment in aquaculture markets has mainly been in collaboration with the Norad funded WorldFish project targeted for Northern and Luapula Provinces.
