Rwandan young graduates, from the University of Rwanda and in Israel who acquired hands-on skills in the field of animal production, animal sciences, veterinary medicines, Wildlife and aquaculture, have secured a one-year deal from the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources to help government increase national ponds’ fish production from  30 kg per 100 sqm to 200 kg per 100 sqm.

The 85 young graduates are organized into a cooperative dubbed "Rwanda Animal Resources Improvement Cooperative (RARICO)” after graduating as a way of job creation.

Jean-Bosco Bizimana, one of the cooperative, who is the coordinator of the project dubbed "Promoting Fish Farming in Ponds and Managing Properly Rwandan Lakes”, told The New Times that male fingerlings of fish species called "Tilapia Nilotica” will be introduced into 1,099 ponds across the country after harvesting stunted fish that were in these ponds because they were not providing good production.

"We have secured a deal from Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board to manage the ponds for one year and train fish farmers on daily farm management.

After this period, each cooperative of fish farmers in ponds will have both financial and skills capacity and thus employ some of the university graduates in aquaculture,” he said.

The fingerlings are locally reproduced (bred) following the recent ban on imports of fingerlings due to tilapia lake virus (TiLV) disease that was identified in various countries.

Around 4 million of Monosex fingerlings of Tilapia Nilotica from National and local private tilapia hatcheries are going to be introduced into the ponds and irrigation dams located in 26 districts, he said.

The cooperative, by using the skills acquired from University of Rwanda and Israel (Internship through learning by doing) are expected to promote fish farming in ponds and increase fish production.

"The monosex fingerlings are recorded to be fast-growing and since they are locally produced they have already adapted to the climate and this will help to increase the production.

Farmers will have adopted commercial oriented fish farming rather than subsistence fish farming. 

This will require at the beginning of each cycle of production the stocking rate that will be adopted by farmers are 4 fingerlings of Monosex Tilapia per square meter.

With the new farming system once using quality fish feed it is target that each fish must have between 400-500 g at harvesting time. 

The production cycle is estimated to 8 months from a 0.2 g fry to 500g. 

He said adding that they are currently working on 96 sites involved in pond fish farming managed by cooperatives.

Despite COVID-19 period, he said technicians, who are members of the cooperative, have been deployed to each cooperative across the country to guide them how to prepare the ponds for new fingerlings.

"Preparation is carried out by cleaning the ponds; draining them, setting up inlets and outlets of the ponds, putting in lime, water, manure and others that serve as natural food for fish. We will also use industrial fish feeds,” Bizimana explained.

He said that before and after stocking of fingerlings they regularly monitor water parameters in order to ensure the quality of water that are being used in pond fish farming

He added that later they will also introduce fingerlings of Oreochromis Niloticus or Nile tilapia in other words.

The fishing sector has been facing different challenges such as lack of enough investment in cage farming and fish farming in ponds.

Solange Uwituze, the Deputy Director-General of Animal Research and Technology Transfer at the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB) recently urged youth to establish fish ponds, make use of idle fish ponds as well as embrace cage fish farming for job creation in the fishing sector.

Fish production in Rwanda was at 31,465 tons last year, while demand is estimated to reach 112,000 tons by 2024.

The country’s fish produce falls short of its demand as it has been importing more than 15,000 tons per year.

Producing 112,000 tons by 2024 per year could help Rwanda attain the average sub-Sahara per capita consumption of 6.6 kilograms per person per annum, and 265,600 metric tons to reach the global average of 16.6 kilos.

But Rwanda’s per capita fish consumption is presently at 2.3 kilograms per person per year.