FISHY HELPING HAND
Fish farmers in the Savusavu Tilapia Farmers Cluster in Fiji are now using gear and
equipment used for breeding and nursing baby fish to help support new fish stocks and
ensure they are able to grow to harvest size.
The equipment – which
includes brood stock
nets, fish harvesting
nets and gear for
handling, counting and
size-grading fish fingerlings – has
been supplied by New Zealand
through the Pacific Sustainable
Aquaculture project administered
regionally by the Pacific Community
SPC, and implemented in Fiji jointly
with the Ministry of Fisheries. The
fish breeding push is assisting new
fish farmers to get established,
along with food security subsistence
farmers, Fisheries technical officer
Anand Prasad says. “We expect
those who turn fish farming into a
business to become self-reliant.
We have been working with the
Aquaculture Section of SPC to train
advanced farmers to do their own
fish breeding, and take the pressure
off government hatcheries which
face a big demand to supply Fiji’s
tilapia farmers with enough fish
fingerlings.” For several months
the cluster members have received
training from SPC and Ministry of
Fisheries in the basics of breeding
and rearing tilapia fish in nursery
ponds, and handling them properly
for distribution. The equipment
allows farmers to scale-up their fish
breeding activities, and get better
control of the level of income they
can expect from their fish ponds
each year. “Supply of baby fish for
pond stocking has been the main
thing holding us back in our fish farm
businesses,” Savusavu farmers said
Eliki Gonelevu and Tekope Toka say.
of Savudrodro village near Savusavu.
“Being able to breed our own fish
here in the Savusavu district is a big
step forward for us”. The Savusavu
tilapia cluster has a total farming
area of 12,000m2 and based on
the Pacific Community economic
research, the farms are only
producing 15% of their full capacity
because of factors like short supply
of fish fingerlings. The cluster is one
of three collaborative fish farmer
groups now operating in Fiji under
the guidance of Ministry of Fisheries
and SPC, with two others in Nadi
and Tailevu South. The farmers meet
monthly, share knowledge and ideas,
coordinate their selling, nominate
members to undertake fish-breeding,
and share ownership of expensive
equipment items like harvest nets,
fish tanks and weighing scales.
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