There is a general outcry of how fish is getting depleted from Uganda’s water bodies. The most mentioned is Lake Victoria, probably because of its size. To reverse this trend the government is trying to put up policies that include checking the sizes of fishing nets used on these water bodies and other methods. Fish depletion may cause lost of more than 60 million dollars in export earnings. The main reasons of dwindling fish stocks are illegal fishing nets and methods.
The present situation failed to completely stop illegal fishing and therefore the quick solution to shortage of fish does not lie in the government policy of cracking down on the offenders. The government may have to turn to fish farmers. Without any big water bodies Israel is one of top ten world countries that export most tonnage of fish as per the Food Agricultural Organisation (FAO) records.
Insufficient expertise in the fish industry in terms of personnel, lack of sufficient acreage of ponds, lack of appropriate technology to boost fish yields per cubic metre of water, competition in prices of reared fish and fish from lakes, are among the impediments of fish farming. Fish from lakes are cheaper and bigger in size than to those from fish ponds. The government of Uganda is now considering addressing these impediments so that the Ugandan fish farmers are motivated to join commercial fish farming.
Presently, there are entrepreneurs who have started producing fish feed and seed. But because the farmers are few, the cost of feed and seed has become too expensive. The main concern of the government is to look how fish feed and seed are accessed at reasonable prices. This can be achieved by assisting the entreprenuers who are now in the business to access cheaper capital or even grants for them to take off.
Experts told that government should help fish farmers also to access soft loans or grants. Investing in research for appropriate technology that can be applied in rural areas where there is no electric power would increase fish output per cubic metre.
