Sustainability report 

Skretting sustainability performance 2019

9.2 Helping small-scale tilapia farmers satisfy Zambia’s appetite for fish

In Zambia, in south-central Africa, more than half the population lives below the poverty line. Aquaculture is an important sector of the country’s economy, and Zambians get a high percentage of their protein intake from fish.

Zambian women

The project we are running is focused on helping smallholder farmers in the Mpulungu region improve their livelihood. It is an inclusive project, with 45% of participating farmers being female. Women play an important role in the livelihood of most households, so it was important to have their participation.

The team working on the project has delivered good results for the community so far. Farmers have adopted methods for improving their businesses through the program, including consistent record keeping, regular sampling and the importance of using good fingerlings. Skretting has provided quality feed to ensure good results, with the benefits clearly seen by the farmers.

Kalugwisha Astridah, one of the women participating said, “I didn’t know that there was such a thing as sex-reversed fingerlings (a common practice in tilapia farming, because male tilapia grow faster than females); this has changed my farming practice.”

Zambian farmers

Challenges

The project has also had its challenges. These included the use of some slow-growing fingerlings, a low survival rate of 69.9%, a drop in market price and low profitability. The remote location, which led to transport challenges during the harvest, also impacted results. Four farmers incurred losses due to flooding during the rainy season, when their ponds were washed away.

The team is always looking to build on its successes and improve how it handles challenges. We are also looking for more partners for future projects in Zambia, including NGOs for technical support, agro-dealers for feed distribution and government officials for closer collaboration.

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Zambian farmer with net
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9.3 Acqua in Bocca

In 2017, Skretting Italy started a stakeholder engagement project aimed at creating shared value using sustainability as a leverage. The initiative revealed a need to improve and coordinate the communication initiatives of the different stakeholders in the supply chain (feed producers, farmers, suppliers, distributors) to fight fake news and improve the perceived value of Italian aquaculture products among local consumers.

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