Aquaculture in central Mozambique

The Mozambican government and the European Union are applying 3.4 million US dollars to support small scale aquaculture in the districts of Mossurize, Macate, Sussundenga and Gondola, in the central province of Manica, and in Gorongosa, in the neighbouring province of Sofala.The General Director of the Institute for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Fernando Momade, announced the figure on Friday, in the Manica provincial capital, Chimoio, during a meeting of the management commission of the aquaculture project, which is drawing up a balance of activities undertaken from 2014 to the present. The project is scheduled to end in November this year.Momade said that 87 per cent of the funding is from the European Union, channelled through the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), while the rest is provided by the Mozambican government. The aquaculture project benefits around 1,000 households living in the five target districts.

“Our main targets are those households who live in areas where we think the conditions exist for breeding fish”, said Momade. “We mobilised people to engage in aquaculture, and at the same time we provided support for opening fish tanks, and distributed beginners’ kits, including fingerlings”.

“We gave demonstrations about nutrition”, he continued, “because these households should know the importance of eating fish. The final goal is to guarantee the food security of the population”.

He said that 85 fish tanks have been stocked with almost 500,000 fingerlings. “We already have some families producing fish for their own consumption and for generating income”, said Momade. “We also have a package for setting up savings and rotating credit groups. The households are learning to save the income from fish farming”.He said that 145 groups of fish farmers have been set up in Manica and Sofala. “We see the results are encouraging because we are receiving more people who want to breed fish”.