KAMPALA– Makerere University’s Department of Zoology and Fisheries sciences has entered a partnership with RUFORUM and Carnegie Foundation to help fish farming communities boost their earnings through value addition.
The research fellowship according to the university will also contribute to improvement in the areas of fish feed formulation, fish production through the integrated farming system and multidisciplinary approaches.
The University says it will train graduate students on post-doctoral fellowship and research in key areas of aquaculture and that these will come up with new innovations to boost the sector.
Other areas of major concern are the replacement of fishmeal with bivalves for aqua-feed, integrated bivalve culture for aqua-feed and water quality management as well as Poultry waste for aqua-feed.
The programme to be rolled out in January 2017 will see participants rewarded Shs93 million each to cover research costs and welfare.
According to Charles Mulamata, Chairman Africa Aquaponics Association Rubaga, poor quality fish seed, quality low priced fish feeds, and proper aquaculture extension staff are key among other problems affecting fish farmers.
He says that aquaculture in Uganda has so far been mostly pond- and subsistence-based but now there is the growing interest of commercial cage fish farming.
“And now we have tank based fish farming which still has to take its root and place. This technology has very many advantages over the rest of the systems and is likely to surpass then in adoption because of the ease of operation, close monitoring high stocking densities and safety.
