When Elijah Murithi grew bananas within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, central Kenya’s more and more erratic climate meant the farmer may not often make a gradual revenue from the thirsty crop.
Extended dry spells killed Murithi’s younger vegetation, and lengthy, intense wet durations produced a glut of bananas that pressured him to decrease his costs to promote them.
Even when he shifted to espresso, which wants much less water, the farmer nonetheless struggled to supply dependable yields.
However that modified in 2021 when he added an uncommon crop to his farm: fish.
A fishpond crammed with greater than 1,500 tilapia now permits him to reap rainwater throughout heavy rains and use a few of it to irrigate his crops when dry spells hit, Murithi mentioned.
Now he makes a good residing by means of drought or downpours, rising espresso and greens year-round whereas making further revenue promoting fish.
“This actually labored to my benefit,” he mentioned of his 10-by-25-metre (33-by-82-foot) fishpond, constructed simply uphill from the espresso vegetation on his 1.25-acre (0.5-hectare) farm in Kibingo, about 130km (80 miles) northeast of Nairobi.
Since he began fish farming in April, Murithi mentioned his espresso harvests have greater than doubled to 2,000kg (4,400 kilos) a yr and his total revenue has tripled.
Because the East African nation grapples with local weather swings that batter crops and choke incomes, together with a present drought that’s the worst in 4 many years, some farmers are discovering that including fish to their farms can assist with water storage, make their diets extra nutritious and enhance earnings.
Since 2019, the Kirinyaga county authorities has been serving to farmers construct fishponds below an financial stimulus programme.
The county covers the price of a pond liner and, for the primary yr, pays for child fish, additionally known as fingerlings, and sufficient feed to maintain them till they mature.
The fisheries division mentioned it has up to now supported about 20 farming teams and greater than 1,350 folks.
Kirinyaga’s authorities mentioned in October it was working to extend annual fish manufacturing from 29 tonnes, which has a worth of 12.8 million Kenyan shillings ($104,000), to 62 tonnes. It didn’t present any details about the price of the initiative.
Altering attitudes
At first, most farmers resisted the thought of elevating fish in an usually parched area, mentioned Harrison Mwangi, chairperson of the Kamwaka Self Assist farmers group, which has 26 members.
He mentioned the prospect was alien to most of the members, who thought they might have higher outcomes elevating chickens.
However after county officers supplied coaching on the right way to elevate fish and mentioned they might assist with the prices, many farmers have given it a strive.
In the end, Mwangi mentioned, his group determined to transform a subject of napier grass at a farm owned by one among its members – a subject that was producing much less and fewer fodder, particularly through the dry season – right into a fishpond firstly of 2021.
By the remainder of yr, the farmers then bought 17,000 shillings ($137) of fish to folks visiting the farm or at native markets, Mwangi mentioned, describing the gross sales as “fairly encouraging” for a primary harvest.
“The group couldn’t have discovered a greater approach to utilise the farm,” he mentioned, explaining how farming fish was simpler than managing different livestock.
The Kamwaka farmers, who every have an annual revenue of 100,000 to 150,000 shillings ($807 to $1,211), ought to see even larger earnings from fish farming sooner or later as their shares multiply, Mwangi mentioned.
John Wilson – the supervisor of Mwea Aquaculture Farm, which raises tilapia and catfish and likewise affords coaching to farmers – mentioned fish farming is just not solely good enterprise but additionally offers another supply of protein for Kenyans.
A fish surplus
Other than the problem of persuading drought-hit farmers in Kenya that fish is a sensible crop, the venture nonetheless has a couple of different kinks to work out, Murithi and Mwangi mentioned.
Whereas the ponds is usually a buffer towards drought by storing rain for use for irrigation within the dry season, farmers hit with notably prolonged dry spells can wrestle to search out methods to prime them up.
Murithi mentioned he has at occasions replenished his pond utilizing agricultural water rations supplied by the county to assist farmers throughout dry durations.
Kamwaka farmers additionally need to pump clear water from close by rivers to their ponds on a weekly foundation when there isn’t any rain. They use a generator, which is dear to run, Mwangi mentioned.
One other problem is the right way to cope with a surplus of fish now filling native markets as extra folks take up elevating them, in response to business insiders.
“Farmers must be aggressive in in search of a marketplace for their produce and shouldn’t look ahead to the county authorities to do the advertising for them,” mentioned Michael Manyeki, a fingerling producer in Sagana, a small industrial city in Kirinyaga.
For Ntiba Micheni, a professor of marine and fisheries biology at Nairobi College, the answer to extra manufacturing is getting extra Kenyans to think about fish as dinner in a rustic the place consuming them is just not widespread all over the place.
“If there isn’t any strong ‘Eat Extra Fish’ marketing campaign for younger youngsters, for colleges and for communities, [selling] fish will without end stay a problem,” mentioned Micheni, a former official on the authorities’s fisheries division.