A Danish-Tanzanian Fish Farm is being established outside Bagamoyo (100 km. north of Dar es Salaam) with support from Danida. The potential is big.
The Business Plan
With the access to plenty of respectively fresh water and salt water, aquaculture, otherwise known as “fish farming”, has great potential in Tanzania.
The vision of the founders of Ruvu Fish Farm is to create a profitable tilapia farm that can stand out as a lighthouse and inspire Tanzanians to utilize the huge potential for aquaculture.
One year ago, the founders of Ruvu Fish Farm, Daudi Makobore and Poul Hansen, discovered the right location at Miswe village for their fish farm and since then things have taken off.
In mid-January 2016 the Danish Ambassador visited the farm to assess the progress of a project where more than 50 men and women from the local village are currently employed on the farm.
The farm has 9 fish ponds ready for operation and five new ponds are being prepared; the plan is to have a total of 48 ponds. On top of the job opportunities, the village also benefits from the project by having the main road repaired by the farm.
Ruvu Fish Farm is the last project supported through the B2B-programme in Tanzania and is supported in total with a grant of DKK 3.5 million.
With the support from Danida, Ruvu Fish Farm has been able to realize their start-up and is already creating local jobs.
Instead of using modern equipment, the founders decided to use local manpower to produce a road to the site and to dig the ponds.
When the farm is up and running it is expected to produce 450 tons of quality tilapia fish per year, create local jobs and improve the access for the low segment of the population to fresh and healthy fish protein.
Beside the commercial activities the parties will develop and implement a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program to train local farmers in fish farming and to give the farmers access to prime quality fry, feed and equipment.
Furthermore, the farm will minimize the environmental impact of the fish production by using the outlet water from the fish farm for irrigation of villagers’ agricultural land surrounding the Ruvu Fish Farm. By doing so, the farm will create a positive impact on the creation of an expansion in a sustainable fish farm industry in Tanzania.
Ready to produce fish
The main investments have been made and as soon as finance is fully secured, the farm will import 200,000 fingerlings from Uganda.
Grow out period for tilapia, from fingerling size to portion size (300-500 grams) is 6-7 months, so hopefully the ambassador will be able to return to the farm at the end of the year and have tilapia for lunch.
Læs mere om Ruvu Fish Farm på selskabets websted
