Fish-farmers appeal for easy access to funding

The UPND Government should make aquaculture development funds easily accessible to citizens so as to make fish business more viable through increased production, the Small-Scale Fish Farmers Association (SSFFA) has said.

SSFFA chairperson, Victor Chatilika, said the US$29 invested in the aquaculture value chain for small-scale fish farmers had not yet been accessed.

“As Small-Scale Fish Farmers, our expectation and call on the incoming Government is that they should provide more funding to the production side so that as a country we can bridge the deficit gap which currently stand at over 80,000mt annually,” he said.

Government, he said, should pick it up from where the PF left and provide more funds to the subsector so that more people could access loans and venture into fish farming.

Mr Chatilika said in an interview that once fully developed, the aquaculture subsector would contribute the much-needed forex to the country through export of fish to the SADC region and beyond.

He said the fish farmers were ready to contribute to the growth of the country’s economy but that in order to achieve that, Government should come up with workable strategies and policies.

Mr Chatilika said apart from minerals such as copper and gold, the aquaculture sector could become another major foreign currency earner for the country.

The Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock had set aside US$29 million for the implementation of the Aquaculture Seed Fund under the Zambia Aquaculture Enterprise Development Project (ZAEDP).

The Seed Fund administered by the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) was meant to benefit more than 3, 000 entrepreneurs along the fish value chain in all the ten provinces.