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 sizegrading
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 Eliki Gonelevu
and Tekope Toka say. “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 fishbreeding,
and share ownership of expensive
equipment items like harvest nets, fish tanks
and weighing scales.
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