Farming with fish – Community finds new hope through aquaculture project

Abstract

Like many bold enterprises, it started as a hobby, became an ambitious plan, and then evolved into a workable scheme as ideas gelled, lessons were learned and hurdles overcome. “My husband and a friend started pottering around on our Graaff Reinet smallholding, converting pig sties into fish tanks, ” explains Blue Karoo Trust project manager, Liesl de la Harpe. “We began raising tilapia with the idea of selling some to local shops, but farmers started approaching us looking for something to occupy the women living on their farms. At that stage we were envisaging fish grown in cages in farm dams and reservoirs, but then we found out that the Total Allowable Catch for pilchard had dropped by 80% since 2004, which meant the gap was wide open for an alternative processed fish. That changed everything, because it would need more people, intensive aquaculture systems and proper processing facilities. ” And so the idea was spawned for the Camdeboo Satellite Aquaculture Project, which they presented to the Eastern Cape Development Corporation in 2008.

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