Nutreco supports Zambian farmers
A GROUP of small scale tilapia farmers in Zambia are taking part in a community project that could eventually see them become commercially independent.
Run by Nutreco, the scheme allocates ponds of an average size of 200-300sq m each to 45 farmers, 40 per cent of them women, and supplies 50 per cent of their feed costs.
Nutreco sustainability officer for Africa Maria Angela Calmet said a similar programme was launched in Nigeria three years ago and has proved a success, with the original cohort of 50 farmers now expanded to 258.
In Nigeria, the third year farmers are reporting 88 per cent survival rates, and Nutreco continues to oversee their feed needs via the Skretting mill in Nigeria.
The company also has a feed plant in Zambia, in the south of the country, and quality extruded feed is delivered from here to Kasama in the north, where the fledgling farming enterprise got underway in July.
The farmers are currently preparing their ponds to stock in September and a local project manager will live within the community to help not just with feed but also with technical expertise. He plans to visit each farm site once a week, offering reassurance to the new producers.
In Nigeria, local people were keen to join the venture once they could see the outcomes, but in Zambia there was a certain wariness, after an earlier government run project which didn’t offer follow up support to the farmers.
Calmet said Nutreco reassured the selected farmers that they would be accompanied throughout by company’s experts.
Each farmer has one pond, in a block of close-together ponds with similar stocking densities.
‘We’re involved and we want it to succeed,’ said Calmet.
‘We want them to be independent eventually.’