NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) Zinath Deen, a fish farmer from Vihiga County in Western Kenya.

She has been practicing fish farming since 2012 in her farm called Tigoi Fish Farm. What began as a hobby for her later transformed into full-fledged business.

Over the years, Zinath has been struggling to produce fingerlings due to inadequate information and technology. She however experienced a turnaround upon her participation in a training on production of tilapia fingerlings. Organized by the Aquacultural Association of Kenya in collaboration with the Aquaculture Compact (TAC) of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), Zinath’s eyes practically opened to a world of opportunities through best practices in fish farming.

 “I realized that I was doing the production of fingerlings the wrong way and resolved to do things the right way henceforth,” Zinath said.

Sponsored by the African Development Bank as part of its Feed Africa Initiative, TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight priority intervention areas.

The programme increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected nine commodity compacts which include aquaculture.

The bank, through the TAAT Aquaculture Compact (TAC) disseminates aquaculture technologies at that increase value chain actors’ productivity, increase fish protein consumption and enhance sustainability across the value chain.

Led by the WorldFish Centre, TAC responds to emerging opportunities for partnerships, influence and impact in fisheries and aquaculture across Africa.

Through its collaboration with the Kenyan Aquacultural Association, the compact was able to train fish farmers and breeders including Zinath on several technologies which included production of fingerlings in hapas, smoking of catfish in modern smoking kiln, value addition and production of affordable fish feed using locally available ingredients. Women and youth were the prime targets of the training with a view to creating jobs while assuring food security.

Following the training in 2019, Zinath and her fellow fish farmers, by the fourth quarter of 2020, were able to increase their production tenfold. Their annual production increased from 120,000 to 360,000 mono sex tilapia. Annual income also increased from $16,649 to $49,440.

With increased income through her fish farm production, Zinath was able to increase her number of employees from 2 to 5. She was also able to transfer the technology to 38 farmers who participated in the training sessions she organised in her farm.

Zinath’s experience as well as that of her colleagues, further accentuates the fact that with right technology, fish farmers are able to graduate from subsistence to commercial producers of fish hence improving their livelihoods through increased income.

The TAC team will therefore continue on this trajectory of disseminating technology to more farmers so as to integrate it with the other methods of fingerling production.

PAMACC News - Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor (UPGro), has been a seven-year international research programme (2013-2020), funded by the Department for International Development, Natural Environment Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Nearly 200 of the world’s best researchers from more than 50 organisations across Africa and Europe have been focused on improving the evidence base around groundwater availability and management in Sub Saharan Africa.

The goal has been to ensure that the hidden wealth of Africa’s aquifers benefit all citizens and the poorest in particular UPGro projects are interdisciplinary, linking the social and natural sciences to address this challenge.

Water resources are critical to economic growth and social development. Groundwater provides most of the domestic water supply in parts of rural Africa and supports poverty reduction through access to clean drinking water and irrigation. In 2015, only 23 of the 52 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) met the UN Millennium Development Goals target for drinking-water provision and Target 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals is to achieve universal access to safe, affordable water by 2030. Groundwater has the potential to provide an improved source of drinking water for those in SSA who are currently without access.

Yet water is not only an important resource for the poor living in rural SSA, but is also central to most industries and a vital commodity for tourism. Industry is an important source of income for several African countries and a lack of water supply could constrain opportunities for development, including better services and improvements to poorer people’s livelihoods. Groundwater sources are often resistant to drought, acting as a natural buffer against rainfall variability. However, groundwater is already intensively used in certain parts of Africa and in some cases it is being extracted faster than it can be replenished. As the population grows, water security in SSA will become increasingly important and demands on groundwater resources are likely to surge. To ensure sustainability, greater understanding of groundwater resources and how to manage their use effectively will be required.

A recent study on groundwater in Africa has shown that there is possibly 20 times more water available as groundwater compared with that available in lakes and rivers. Droughts are currently a major cause of humanitarian disaster in SSA, often leading to mass population movements and considerable health, social and economic stress on many developing nations. These humanitarian disasters are likely to grow in scale as populations increase and climate and land-use change accelerate. With these increasing pressures on water resources, the potential pressure on groundwater as the solution to the water security challenge in SSA is high.

PAMACC News - Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor (UPGro), has been a seven-year international research programme (2013-2020), funded by the Department for International Development, Natural Environment Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Nearly 200 of the world’s best researchers from more than 50 organisations across Africa and Europe have been focused on improving the evidence base around groundwater availability and management in Sub Saharan Africa.

The goal has been to ensure that the hidden wealth of Africa’s aquifers benefit all citizens and the poorest in particular UPGro projects are interdisciplinary, linking the social and natural sciences to address this challenge.

Water resources are critical to economic growth and social development. Groundwater provides most of the domestic water supply in parts of rural Africa and supports poverty reduction through access to clean drinking water and irrigation. In 2015, only 23 of the 52 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) met the UN Millennium Development Goals target for drinking-water provision and Target 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals is to achieve universal access to safe, affordable water by 2030. Groundwater has the potential to provide an improved source of drinking water for those in SSA who are currently without access.

Yet water is not only an important resource for the poor living in rural SSA, but is also central to most industries and a vital commodity for tourism. Industry is an important source of income for several African countries and a lack of water supply could constrain opportunities for development, including better services and improvements to poorer people’s livelihoods. Groundwater sources are often resistant to drought, acting as a natural buffer against rainfall variability. However, groundwater is already intensively used in certain parts of Africa and in some cases it is being extracted faster than it can be replenished. As the population grows, water security in SSA will become increasingly important and demands on groundwater resources are likely to surge. To ensure sustainability, greater understanding of groundwater resources and how to manage their use effectively will be required.

A recent study on groundwater in Africa has shown that there is possibly 20 times more water available as groundwater compared with that available in lakes and rivers. Droughts are currently a major cause of humanitarian disaster in SSA, often leading to mass population movements and considerable health, social and economic stress on many developing nations. These humanitarian disasters are likely to grow in scale as populations increase and climate and land-use change accelerate. With these increasing pressures on water resources, the potential pressure on groundwater as the solution to the water security challenge in SSA is high.