Plans to open fish plant in Zambia
The Zambian government is working on plans to open a fish plant in Chief Machiya’s area in Mpongwe district, acting district commissioner Godfrey Zimba has said.
The planned fish plant is a bid to boost fish farming and provide small-scale farmers access to the markets, reports the Zambia Daily Mail.
Mr Zimba said as fish stocks have been depleted in most rivers and lakes in the country, the government is encouraging small-scale farmers to venture into fish farming.
“We are about to open a fish plant in Machiya. We are only waiting for the fridges to be installed so that whatever our people are producing, can be sold,” he said in an interview.
Zambia’s annual national production of fish is 95,000mt, but in 2014 the country consumed 130,000mt of fish. Of the 95,000mt produced, only 20,000mt is from aquaculture, and 75,000mt is from rivers and lakes.
The government is also currently undertaking reforms to ease entry of enterprising citizens in the private sector into aquaculture production, such as the recent launch of fish projects in Siavonga and Chalimbana by President Lungu.
