As climate change shapes the ecological conditions and weather patterns, humans have been forced to adapt to survive by inventing new ways to address its negative impacts through embracing creativity.
One of these exciting creativity that has caught career farmers’ eyes is what is now referred to as inland cage fish farming.
Although the inland Cage fish farming system is not currently popular in Kenya, the effects of water pollution and climate change may force the country to embrace the system soon.
In Awendo Sub County, one farmer is defying the odds of having cage fish farming outside the natural habitat of large water bodies like lakes and oceans.
The construction of a man-made linear dam at Ranenville Aqua Farm located in Awendo Sub County defies the logic that cage farming can only be done in large water bodies like Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean.
The 80-meter deep man-made dam, Ranenville Aqua dam, possess the necessary requisite of holding 13 cages; making it one of the biggest unnatural wat
er mass on land and home to vast cage farming in Nyanza Region.
According to Denis Odhiambo, the aqua-culturist and manager of Ranenville Aqua Farm, each of their 13 single cages provides home to 4,000 tilapia fish, making the investment a fortune, especially with the readily available market from Migori Rio Fish Limited.
Odhiambo says that one inland cage kit measuring 2.5 in width, five meters in length and three meters in depth has a capacity of four standard fish ponds making it an economic fish system in fish production.
The Ranenville Aqua farm has the new improved F8 generation-Nile tilapia obtained from Sagana Aquaculture Centre. The F8 strain matures faster, is highly nutritious, and is fed low in the food chain. The strain is also opportunistic omnivorous, and resistant to poor water quality and diseases.
Further, Odhiambo, affirms that the fish are fed eight times a day to achieve the growth rate of size four in three months.
‘We usually harvest our fish every four months due to the intensive
culture system that is run in the cages. In a year, we harvest twice as compared to ordinary pond fish farmers that harvest once per year’, explained Odhiambo.
Due to its confined nature, the dam is aired twice a day for continuous fresh water necessary for fish survival.
The aqua-culturist notes that the biggest advantage of inland fish is its ability to be in a controlled environment that prevents pollution, invasion of aquatic vegetation like water hyacinth, reduced competition from exotic species, and other sea predicators found in open water bodies like Lake Victoria and Indian Ocean.
Inland caging has also the advantage of enabling the fish to readily acclimatise to conditions within the dam or reservoir.
In 2023 cage fish farmers in Lake Victoria, an open water body, lost stock worth Sh884 million and Sh43 million in Kisumu and Homabay Counties respectively, affecting 135 cage farmers.
In 2023, Ranenville Aqua Farm, introduced fingerlings and feed production to cater for its high demand for fish p
roduction as well as for the local market.
Odhiambo’s advice to fish farmers is to employ creativity, be patient and have the right mind in fish production. He also urges the fish farmers to attend trainings to acquire technical skills in aquaculture and join Saccos for easier marketability.
The manager acknowledges that some of the creative skills and technical know-how were obtained from organisations like the Aquaculture Business Development Programme (ABDP).
ABDP has been supporting the development of the fish enterprise, community nutrition initiatives and the aquaculture value chain development in rural areas.
Source: Kenya News Agency
