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Sharon Shayanewako
THE Government is putting together dam management committees to give technical support to households participating in the Presidential Fisheries Programme set to be introduced in 1 200 dams across the country.
Acting director Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Mr Milton Tinashe Makumbe recently told The Herald that 1 200 dams were targeted in all provinces in the country with 50 000 fingerlings set to be released into each dam by 2025
“We are targeting to have stocked each of the 1 200 dams with 50 000 fingerlings by 2025. The dams will be chosen from all of the country’s provinces. “The Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) gave us an inventory of all the dams and other water bodies strewn across the country,” commented Mr Makumbe.
He explained that the dam management committees would run the general day to day operations at the respective dams and water bodies that would have been stocked with fingerlings.
“With the help of the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, dam committees will be responsible for the general management and also assessment of the growth of the fish among other things.”
The Presidential Fisheries Programme is for both domestic consumption and commercial purposes.
“As part of the programme, we will be introducing cages for the commercial aspect of things when we stock the dams with fingerlings. Fingerlings that would have been stocked in the dams will contribute towards general food and nutrition security for the households of the respective individuals or communities in charge. This should also create an element of income generation, where people might also be selling the fish.
“We hope that participating households will include sex reversed fingerlings in the cages, which will be harvested later. In the long-run what we are looking at is setting up processing plants or processing companies within the respective provinces especially in the hotspots or hubs where there is a lot of fish production. Households will be harvesting fish from the dams and processing them into fillet among other products,” said Mr Makumbe.
The Presidential Fisheries Programme is an initiative meant to boost income and nutrition security to ensure that no one and no place is left behind in all provinces, as the country marches towards attaining an upper middle income economy by the year 2030. In its report on the state of preparedness for the 2022/2023 cropping season, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development said the fisheries programme was expected to increase local fish production from 16 000 million tonnes in the 2020/21 farming season to the targeted 18 000 in the 2022/23 farming season.
Chief director Agriculture and Rural Advisory Services Professor Obert Jiri said extension officers would be educating farmers on how to manage fingerlings to make sure that the programme was successful.
“Training is the hallmark of Agritex. Farmers will be fully trained on how to handle this fisheries programme to ensure its viability,” he said.
Professor Jiri added that the Presidential Fisheries Programme was one of the initiatives that had been adopted by the Government to achieve the objectives of Vision 2030 of leaving no one behind.
“The programme is going to fulfill the objectives of Vision 2030 that include import substitution through improved food and nutritional security, employment creation and improved incomes.”
Access, property rights and control over aquatic resources is vital especially to the rural dwellers – youths and women, observed Professor Jiri.
In the event of crop production failure, modest production of aquatic resources by vulnerable communities may have disproportionate social benefits to livelihoods.
Online Reporter