Musoomerwa Mutallibi
Olympus side A
AL I’d like some information please about the fish farm project at Nakigo Secondary School; I am going to be able to report back to the Link school in the UK, which has been involved with this project, so…
MM Now, I am Musoomerwa Mutallibi, a private fish farmer in Iganga district, but already an identified fish producer and a fish expert in Eastern Region, which takes about up to 20 districts now. I trained in Thailand and far as fish breeding is concerned, in these research centres in Uganda about pond construction, family outs… what, what,.
So, as far as Nakigo Senior Secondary School fish farm project was concerned, I was only contacted through a friend of a friend of the Headmistress of the school. Also, the Headmistress under stress over the same project had advised her to contact me…
AL Right
MM So, because she knew I was content about this project. So, when I came to look at the site and the project itself, I found they had already done something already, beyond repair, what should I say? So, I had to go back again once more to redo what had gone wrong.
AL Yup
MM Mum, the little I could do is to renovate some two ponds and I stocked one, which is now stocked with fish. And I went ahead so otherwise they might not have even been that. Initially what could have been done was to have a water source which could direct the whole thing to a better result- oriented programme. So, presently, I am constructing a very big water reservoir for this so-called fish farm project and this reservoir’s capacity is 320 square metres squared. And this can service at least two ponds at a time, when it has filled to capacity, it can service two ponds at a time. And the farm presently has three ponds, which are renovated and one big pond which is yet to be renovated,
AL Right
MM That one, that one’s capacity is about 1000 square metres, the other bigger pond we should be also looking at after the completion of this reservoir.
So, this project, this programme is so good, as far as I am concerned, because physically I went to study to you what, in the country where I trained, and I know how viable this thing is good, especially in a school like this one, where there are very many students, who, after here, will need work to do, in their homes, in their what? Some even after failing to go ahead with other things, this is a good project for them to carry on, after leaving O level or A level here.
So, it being a school, when a child, when a student has undergone this training and seen practically what it, how it is operated so she can go back to their parents, he can go back to the parents, to the fellow youth in the village and they do exactly what he or she has seen being done here. The thing is ah nutritionally viable, in the first instance. Because, ah, proteins in the community are not there; the little fish which is being available, which is being got in the villages it comes from very far and it is very expensive. So, advisably, people should undertake fish farming, and if it comes through or it goes through a school like this one, I think the multiplying effect would be very big, because there are very many students who come from very many parts of the community and they can spread the idea.
AL Can you tell me a little bit about the projects which you have already put into practice? Because you’ve said you have some existing expertise and you have already worked on Fish farms, so can you tell me a little bit about your existing projects, which already have the big fish please?
MM Yeah. Being a fish producer of course I am the centre now for all the fish farmers in this area, Eastern region and particularly Iganga district; so all Fish farmers come for fish seed, from my hatchery, or my seed production unit. So every Fish farmer whom I supply I have to do this extension service, or Customer Affair service, or advisory service because it is a business and I expect these farmers to go and plant seed in their ponds, sell and then come back. So, I try as much as possible to advise them as they take my fish for what? So, presently I have about four farmers who have done now very well these two or three years, they harvest twice a year, and they particularly the first one there is this, it is best to call it Catfish, they are usual around there.
AL Yeah
MM It is locally consumable. People in the community prefer it very well, and it bears with the conditions in the muds or in the wetlands. So, he grows that one regularly and harvests twice a year; even as I talk, he’s about to harvest in December or January there, the second cycle of this very year.
AL So, he’ll have two, two what do you call it, a crop of fish? (Laughter)
MM Ah
AL Harvest?
MM Harvest. For catfish you can have two crops a year, but for Tilapia because it grows slowly… you can get
AL What have they got here?
MM This one is catfish.
AL This is catfish
MM This one is catfish but it is mixed with some Tilapia. And I doubt whether Tilapia will do well, because of the other problem of water. Because the water has not been all that deep, that’s why we’re draining on the reservoir so that we’ll get enough water to replenish or to reclean the other one so that even Tilapia can grow as we expect it to
do.
AL I’ll need you to write down how you spell the name of that other fish. I can spell catfish (Laughter)
MM You can spell catfish. But Tilapia: T, I, L, A, P, I, A. Then there is a scientific name for it, which I don’t really know, or you’re convinced I just, but that one can do for now.
AL I will find out the scientific name for it.
MM yes, yes.
AL So what are the resources that are needed for this project, once all the ponds are built?
MM To begin with, as one who has to venture into this trial project, you need to have to contact a person who is at least technically, who is technically up to date about the what, about the project or about the enterprise of fish farming. Because siting, siting, siting the pond, siting the pond and siting the area for the reservoir those are very important things. And it is the mistake which I found here, because they had sited poorly at first.
AL Then, when the ponds are there, what else do you need?
MM When the ponds are there, of course for the ponds to exist there are a lot of resources, a lot of finance must be needed. But one good thing is that as soon as you construct a pond, technically properly you don’t do it for over fifty years, it can last for over fifty years, a fish pond. It is only catastrophic when you have done it as badly as initially these ones were done, because you have to reinvest and at that pitch…
AL All the labour
MM And at that pitch, but, as soon as you do it properly, that thing lasts for fifty years; and you go on renovating. You only have to buy seed, the fish seed and then the fish feed. The fish feed and then of course the management labour. The management costs, labour- what, what. Those are the three things: these variables these of course those are automatic and the returns after investing in the pond are automatic. Because of course fish now is very expensive and right now as we talk, in the country, nationally, fish is now the second Foreign Exchange earner.
AL Right
MM Struggling with coffee, but at times even it overpasses coffee; so, as far as I can see from my observation, this is the future of the next generation, fish farming, because we have a lot of very many… If I was to, even if we were to interview these students, at least every people here has a land or a piece of wetland which has good sites for fish farming. Only, that, that sensitsation is not there; yet.
AL They haven’t thought about that possibility?
MM Yes.
AL So how long should it take before the initial investment would be realised at the school?
MM What I would say…
AL Or they’re still going to have to pay money to get seeds and the..?
MM Ah, this project here?
AL Yeah and the fish.
MM Mmm, I don’t know where we can begin to count the investments; should we include even the other field, the investment which was the initial one?
AL Yes, because that’s all part of it, isn’t it?
MM Because right now, right now we have to stock the other three or four ponds we have not stocked… I only did this one.
AL You stocked one?
MM To reassure her, because she had been demoralised;
AL Yeah
MM So I did this, to do this one, to show her that this thing works.
AL Yeah
MM So, as she told you down there, the first crop will be go to teaching and even the children will have to go to feel that, that pride that this thing after all works.
AL Yup
MM So, for the investments to work they have probably to move this first crop and then invest, I mean stock all the ponds once. Now that we are finishing, there is, I am very sure within a month’s time all the ponds will be now working and we will have to stock them … especially when she harvests the first pond and we stock all of them at once.
AL So the first harvest will be from…
MM From the first pond.
AL From the first pond that we’ve seen, in December maybe?
MM December and then…
AL And then from all the ponds?
MM We can stock them, if we want to stock them at once we can stock them in December/ January and then because these ones I think have only about two or three weeks to finish the reservoir, and they’ve started off breeding these ponds so that as water products by December the reservoir should be full and we will be able to fill those three ponds at once and stock them
AL So you wouldn’t envisage stocking them at different times, so that the harvests would come at different times?
MM that would be a good idea; fantastic; that is the best idea!
AL Yeah
MM Yeah, that is the best idea. But unless as we talk now we may stock them at the same time, if the harvest is in December- because now this is November and we’re still struggling there, so…
AL There’s not a lot yet? Is there anything else that you think you should tell me about this sort of project? Because maybe I’m not just going to write about it for my research, but maybe I can write about this in a magazine, that might be seen by teachers, in the UK; people who are interested in projects which are designed to be sustainable? That’s why I’m trying to ask you whether it will become sustainable.
MM It is…
AL Or whether it will always need income to be found to buy seed or the fish food
MM Yes, fish feed and fish seed; those things take a bit of cost.
AL Yeah
MM So, now that you’re helping them, please do help them more to get those things. And what I was advising, I was talking to this Bursar/ teacher in your offices, is that there could be a special programme for this particular project in this school, I would have only six months permanently with this school, at this project, so that we begin from A up to Z, and leave them harvesting, when I have shown them exactly how I want this thing. Because there is a smaller pond here, which I designed particularly for holding the seeds as soon as they come, so that they are held in that pond for two months, then we breed them and distribute them in the different ponds according to the different sizing, which have come up within that period, then I would be expecting very good results. Because now it has the programme which is working, which I am using everywhere, in my other projects. But then this one, being the school with the, for particular terms of operation, it would be good that I talked to one of the stakeholders in this things that particular programme, if it is put in their time-table, and I would have only six months, I would direct it and either the teacher or some of your students, about ten of them, now who would have this interest.
AL I may think of some other questions afterwards, but is there anything else you think I should know about this idea of having a fish farm, where you provide the labour, you provide the expertise, but people have to obviously buy the fish seed and buy the fish feed? So, anything else that you think I need to know? Or, if I am writing to people who understand fish farming that they would want to know about this particular project? So you’ve given me some statistics, about for example how big the reservoir is, yup? And how big the large empty pond that is at the bottom is; is there any technical information that I need to know?
I know about the two varieties, but it is mainly going to be catfish; and I know that you can get two harvests of fish a year, if it is catfish. Is there anything else I could put in like a ‘fact file’?
MM What I would suggest probably, is probably me, together with the concerned people, now that you are around or would have probably a small sort of budget for.. or a proposal, or a programme for at least that time-table that I have cited, six years, right from this activity that I am doing up to harvesting those four ponds, when they are stocked.
AL I need to explain that I am not a stakeholder, I am just a researcher. Yeah?
MM You are a researcher.
AL But I have an opportunity to meet with the school in the UK to tell them about the progress on this project. Yeah? So, you are indirectly, through me, speaking to some of the people who… and they will be coming next summer, they are coming in August. Yeah?
MM Alright, beginning from that point; probably by next August they will meet us when you have harvested the first crop. So, right now, we will proceed with the school administration and make a time-table, and make a framework of the work, beginning with this reservoir, including the partial harvesting of the small pond, in December and then the re-stocking and then what it would cost to buy fish, to renovate the ponds, the big pond, feeding and what and probably even the cost-effectiveness.