By Felix Matasva
Small-scale fish farmers have pleaded with government to reduce several expenses they incur to comply with applicable regulations, saying they are severely affecting Zimbabwe tilapia industry’s competitiveness in Southern Africa region.
Within Sub-Saharan Africa large industrial scale ventures of tilapia are found mainly in Ghana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
When Zimbabwe pioneered its Lake Harvest venture at Kariba dam, it used to export remarkable produce to Zambia.
Contemporarily Zambia is now exporting a lot of fish which is being consumed in the country ever since it started its industrial venture at Kariba Dam, a shared water body.
In an exclusive interview with Orbit Youth International in Mutare, Zimbabwe Fish Producers Association (ZFPA) chairman, Garikai Munatsirei said government must emulate Zambia’s outstanding efforts to turnaround fortunes of its aquaculture sector.
“Zambia’s government took necessary measures to promote fish farming and it is now exporting to Zimbabwe, Angola and other various countries.
“In Zambia farmers do not incur a lot of compliance costs that we have in Zimbabwe,” Munatsirei said.
He added:” Here fish producers pay fees to Zim Parks in Kariba, levies to ZINWA and Council.
“They also incur a cost in order to access movement permits that enable them to transport fingerlings from Kariba to other parts of the country. Producers also pay other compliance costs to get permits to export and to import fish feed.
“There are a lot of costs and those are all impediments to the viable Tilapia industry.”
Munatsirei stressed that due to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s regulations fish farmers are losing 40% of their money whenever they export fish.
“RBZ takes 40% and gives you Zim dollars at the interbank rate.
“We find problems when we want to use our export revenues to buy inputs pegged at the full market rate of US dollars,” he said adding that it makes producers very uncompetitive.
Munatsirei urged government to unlock the potential of aquaculture sector by reducing taxes.
“When something is new you do not overload it with too much compliance costs so that it does not flourish at all.
” Both the government and farmers will lose and then will end up importing fish from other countries when we can produce on our own.
“Zimbabwe pioneered fish farming in Lake Kariba hence by now we should have been years ahead of competition.
“Due to all these costs we are our own enemies.”
Munatsirei added that fish producers must come up with a coordinated approach to promote a culture of eating fish in Zimbabwe where beef, chicken and pork are the most consumed meat.
He proposed that producers may hold a Fish Day every month to educate masses on the health benefits of fish while offering them discounts as an incentive.
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) official Paul Mwera noted: “Feed is expensive and it is actually a barrier to fish producers because 70% of costs they incurr comprises farmers feed.”
Agriculture ministry’s department of Fisheries and Aquatic resources acting director, Milton Makumbe, said government is currently working on a Fisheries and Agricultural policy which seeks to address challenges faced by actors in the aquaculture sector.
“We also have a strategy which is in place and it speaks to challenges being faced by farmers.
“Once we start to roll out that strategy we should be able to address some of these production costs.
“We are actually hoping to lower the production costs of fish so that we become competitive as compared to other regional fish producers.”
According to FAO the average fish consumption rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at 8.9 kg per capita compared to a world average of 18.9 kg.
Fish demand in the region also outstrips supply.