The Zimbabwe government is mulling establishing community fish ponds in all the country’s provinces to grow its fish value chain.
This was confirmed by the country’s director of fisheries in the Ministry of Agriculture, Milton Makunde.
He said the commercialisation of the fish industry in Zimbabwe was underway with the government set to establish fish processing sites and markets across all provinces.
Zimbabwe has 10 administrative provinces.
“As the country is seized with developing the fish industry, it is imperative that proper infrastructure is put in place, as this will play a pivotal role in uplifting rural livelihoods in line with achieving an upper-middle-income economy by 2030,” Makunde said.
He said the establishment of community gardens will result in each local community having a minimum of two fish ponds.
The project is also being supported through the construction of various dams across the country and will give birth to more fish “hotspots” that have the potential to commercialise fish farming.
At Tugwi-Mukosi Dam in Masvingo province, the government has since issued 17 fishing commercial permits mostly to the local communities.
Makunde added the government was eyeing to grow the number of fish farmers through its commercial cage fisheries project.
He said to complement the programme, there were also prudent irrigation schemes to produce fish and increase volume for the local and export markets.
A separate scheme to the commercial cage fisheries project, the presidential community fisheries scheme is also operational. Under this scheme, the government is restocking 1 200 dams in a five-year programme with the aim to grow the fish farming sector into a key economic contributor.
