NEWS:

28 Jan, 2016


Participants pose for a group photo with the guest of honour


Government through the Department of Fisheries has emphasised on the need of research for improving aquaculture in the country.

This was said on Tuesday at an AGRITT Challenge Research Fund Dissemination meeting conducted in Mangochi.

In a sideline interview during the event, the Deputy Director of Fisheries in the country Dr Steven Donda said aquaculture development requires a lot of innovations and improvement saying research is one of the aspects that can help to come up with technologies that can actually enhance development of the sector.

He commended LUANAR-NEPAD Fish Node and all other partners for coming up with research on development of low cost diets saying feed is one of the important aspect that contribute to growth of fish.

“Once the research findings are documented into user friendly languages they will be distributed to the farmers,” said Dr Donda.

He urged LUANAR to do further research on the quality of feed as well as fingerings.

LUANAR Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Emanuel Kaunda acknowledged the fact that the country’s aquaculture production is very low as compared to some countries within the region.

He said countries like Ghana produces 15000 metric tonnes per year while Malawi has been producing 2000 metric tonnes per year for quite a long time.

“One of the main contributing factors to the development of aquaculture sector is feed and this research has developed some knowledge on how to tackle the problem of feed. Can we be able to provide better feed for the fish to grow? And this was what the research was all about,” said Professor Kaunda.

He said the research found out that feed from other countries gave faster fish growth compared to locally made feed.

“We would like to interrogate on this. Is it quality of feed, amount of protein available or is it the way the feed is formulated? This is the information we want to generate,” he said.

Farmers bemoaned lack of subsidy in the fish sector as one of the main contributing factor for low aquaculture production.

One of the farmers who is also a Chairperson for Innovative Fish Farmers Network Trust (IFFNT), Mr Lucky Penumlungu said subsidising feed would be one of the important factor to improve the current low fish production.

“If we want to develop aquaculture production, lets emulate from maize which is benefitting from subsidy. If the government can consider subsidising feed then there will be an improved production and farmers will make profits,” said Penumlungu.

He said it is important for the research to be documented so that farmers should be able to use knowledge generated through this research.

Another farmer from Mchinji Mr Frazer Kumwenda complimented Penumlungu saying some of the neighbouring countries like Zambia have cheaper feed as compared to Malawi hence the need for subsidy.

Mr Brino Chirwa from the Department of Fisheries stressed on the need to find solutions for the problem of feed saying this will affect adoption of new technologies in the sector.

The 24 months project was implemented by NEPAD Regional Fish node under LUANAR in conjunction with National Resources Institute of University of Greenwich (NRI), Freshwaters Fisheries Research Centre (FFRC) in China, National Aquaculture Centre in Malawi, Maldeco Aquaculture Limited in Malawi and the Innovative Fish Farmers Network Trust in Malawi.


Written By: Patricia Nkhoma Ngwale