Fusion Marine Ltd has won a £0.5m contract to supply fish farm pens and associated aquaculture equipment for a new tilapia farming venture in Zambia.
This project Mpende Fisheries is for a tilapia farm located on Lake Tanganyika, the second largest freshwater lake by volume in the world. For the development, Fusion Marine will be supplying 18 Aquaflex fish farm pens as well as providing technical expertise for the installation.
The project will also incorporate a hatchery capable of producing 10 million tilapia fingerlings. Construction work on the hatchery is already underway and the broodstock of local indigenous tilapia (Tilapia Tanganyika) from the lake has been under cultivation for over a year. Production of fingerlings should commence towards the middle of this year and the first produce from the pens is expected early in 2013, with initial annual production anticipated to be in the region of 1,000 tonnes per year.
Professor Carmelo Agius, Fusion Marine aquaculture consultant, said: “Once the farm is up and running, the biggest challenge for Mpende Fisheries is the distance of the site from the big cities in Zambia where the supporting services are to be found and where the markets for the product lie. The harvest will, therefore, be processed locally and then sent to the major markets in the country.”
