EU behind Uganda park project
APROJECT to kick start small to medium aquaculture businesses in Uganda will get under way this September. The country has a lot of water, unlike many other areas in Africa, and therefore a lot of potential to develop aquaculture - ‘we have the biggest lake in the world, a lot of rivers and streams,’ Patrick Seruyange, of the Delegation of the EU to Uganda, told the
There is a growing gap between supply and demand, with the population growing at a rate of three per cent and now at 35 million.
subsistence level.
ing from the EU of 10 million euros, aims to minimise the environmen income, improve livelihoods and nutrition.
Seruyange explained that within the ‘parks’, production and marketing will be coordinated, and the focus will be on smallholders.
The farms will concentrate on indigenous can be sold in regional markets such as Kenya, the Congo and South Sudan (when it settles down).
The two sites chosen for the project are Mwena on Lake Victoria, which will be a cage park for tilapia, and Lake Kyoga, on the banks in ponds.
Asked about the risk of disease in intensive farming systems, Seruyange said the situation in the lakes was less hazardous than in other
Warned by one delegate in the audience of ‘disaster’ – going by experience with Ghana stolen – Seruyange said ‘we have to move forward’ and that the ‘devil would be in the detail’.
Fish is $2 per kilo in Uganda, he said, and ‘we have to bring that down’.