Karamoja’s women find hope in fish farming
Members of the Didit fish farmers group showcase some of the fish in their ponds. PHOTO | SIMON PETER EMWAMU
What you need to know:
- For decades, malnutrition has claimed the lives of hundreds of children in the Karamoja subregion. However, novel fish farming in Karenga district is promising to turn the tide, as well as improve the household income of the population. A section of the population and district leaders were trained in managing fishponds and encouraged to form fish farming groups, as Simon Peter Emwamu reports.
Lobalangit sub-county in Karenga district may sound unfamiliar to many. The uneven surface is littered with countless rocks, hills, and boulders difficult to navigate in both the dry and wet seasons.
Here, one will find a calm hardworking community little known to the rest of the country. The serene environment is cushioned in a dense cover of natural trees, with birds flapping from one treetop to another in search of wild fruits and insects.
At the peak of the harvest season, the people of Lobalangit have plenty to eat including from maize, sorghum, soybean, potatoes, cassava, and simsim. Cotton and simsim are the cash crops.
This rugged highland with its fertile soils is home to 19,000 people whose mainstay is derived from farming, and cattle keeping. Lately, several women groups have embraced fish farming to fight both household poverty and malnutrition, a common ailment that has, over the years, claimed scores of children in the restive Karamoja subregion.
The Didit Fish Farmers group has over 12 fish ponds. Christine Angom, a member of the group, says they are privileged to live near underground water streams that push water from the rocks that surround the village.
“We have water throughout the year. Before 2017, this community eked a living through growing sorghum, cotton, and cassava. However, because of the alarming levels of malnutrition, we were trained in fish farming by Andre Foods International (AFI) and World Food Programme (WFP),” she says.
AFI is a non-governmental organisation that since 2000, has offered solutions to issues relating to food, nutrition, water, and the state of the environment. AFI has also engaged in consultation and research activities, all focused on tackling community nutrition concerns mostly in the Teso, West Nile, and Karamoja subregions.
In 2022, after the training, the women were supported to excavate over 40 fish ponds in Lobalangit and Pire villages. In 2023, they were given fingerlings and start-up feeds as a takeoff incentive.
“After eight months, we sold off the first batch of fish and made over Shs7 million. We reinvested the money in the business by buying fish feeds. Although some members showed reluctance at the beginning of the project, our zeal was not dampened,” Angom explains.
Women of Didit fish farmers group together with their men prepare to cast a fish net inside one of the fish ponds in Lobalangit sub-county. PHOTO | SIMON PETER EMWAMU
The group plans to lobby the relevant government departments to help them restock the fish ponds. She emphasises that the move from the traditional way of life of the Karimojong and a mindset change will catapult the region to greatness.
“Most of Karenga district has fertile alluvial soils from the hundreds of hills and rocks. However, the soils are yet to be put to the best use. We are proudly vegetable farmers and all we need is assurance of ready market,” Angom says.
Sarah Nakwang, another member of the group, first ate fish in 2023 after the AFI and WFP training. Previously the community survived on wild greens, sorghum bread, and meat.
“We still need guidance from district leaders on how to run the project for the next three years. Fish farming is still a new business in this district and fish feed is expensive. The district should consider supporting us as an affirmative action until we have working capital that we can use between harvests,” she says.
Trevor Samuel Oloch, another member of the Didit Fish Farmers group, explains that despite the challenge of expensive feeds, the project is an eye-opener for them.
“In the history of our community, no farming group had ever earned Shs7 million through crop farming. For now, our undoing is the distance of 400 kilometers from Karenga to Lira district to buy feeds. The transport fare eats into the group’s savings and limits the amount of fish feeds to be bought,” he says.
Oloch requests that since the group is the pioneer of fish farming in the district, the feed incentive and fish fingerlings should be given for another three years.
“This will give us time to invest in the project’s sustainability. The single mothers in the group cannot afford to contribute towards the purchase of feeds yet the project was given to our women as a money-generating aspect,” he adds.
The father of five says the first money the group earned went into purchasing feeds with little invested in fish fingerlings. Today, the small stock of fish in the ponds is becoming stunted because of limited feeds.
Poorly managed ponds
Under good farming practices, tilapia fish takes eight months to mature while catfish takes six months. Currently, a fish that weighs two kilograms can be sold at Shs5,000.
Morris Angel Okolong, a parish chief, supervises the three fishpond projects found in Lobalangit and Pire parishes, in Lobalangit sub-county. He says the ponds are doing fairly well and the district is trying to solve the problem of the availability of fish feeds.
“A feed-making machine was procured by AFI and the farmers were trained in making the feeds. I believe the long distance to Lira district to procure feeds will soon be a thing of the past,” he explains.
Okolong says AFI, with support from WFP, invested over Shs150 million in fish farming projects in Lobalangit and Pire parishes, therefore it would be a sad state of affairs if the money-generating venture went to waste.
“The fisheries officer in Karenga district local government had been away on study leave in South Korea. We want him to come and offer the much-needed expertise in this wonderful venture that is only found in this district and not in other areas of Karamoja,” Okolong explains.
The parish chief maintains that during the training, the trainers often highlighted that a well-maintained fishpond can hold over 10,000 fingerlings. After eight months, a group can earn over Shs10 million from the fish.
“I challenge the members of the fish farming groups to achieve this milestone. AFI and WFP also constructed fish smoking kilns for these women-dominated groups. At one time, the women supplied smoked fish to Kaabong and Kotido districts,” he says.
Women of the Didit fish farmers and their men prepare to cast a fish net inside one of the fish ponds in Lobalangit sub-county. PHOTO | SIMON PETER EMWAMU
Okolong’s prayer is that the fish farming groups grow to supply the rest of the subregion – which does not have a good water supply to support this type of farming – with fish.
Felix Mark Lochale, the district’s LCV chairperson, says that before AFI launched its activities in the district, the authorities had little idea that fish farming would do well. The organisation first surveyed the malnutrition levels in Lobalangit sub-county.
“The survey showed that the sub-county was among the areas with the highest levels of stunting, with several children dying as a result of malnutrition. The pointers were that the area lacked nutritious food,” he says.
Supplying nutritious food to the area was unsustainable. The organisation came up with a solution of cultivating vegetables and encouraging fish farming.
According to statistics from Moroto Regional Referral Hospital for the financial year 2022-2023, about 1,014 children under five years out of the target population of 22,740 were referred to the Nutrition Ward with severe malnutrition.
The Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2016 paints a tragic portrait of human suffering, with an overwhelming 61 percent of the 1.2 million population of the subregion condemned to live in abject poverty.
“Karenga district is an agro-pastoralist area that relies on subsistence farming purposely for household survival. However, in some farming seasons, dismal harvests as a result of drought, leave several families facing food shortages,” Lochale adds.
Modern farming techniques are now being embraced by a section of the district’s population, giving hope that poverty and malnutrition will soon be a thing of the past.
What other districts can do
David Lopus, a teacher at Iriiri Primary School in Napak district, says that there are things that some people in Karamoja are ignorant about, yet they can flourish or do well in the region.
“For instance, the people in Nakichumet village in Napak district have Arechek Dam which has a lot of water. These people can also be trained to carry out fish farming because there is ready access to water. That water should not only be used for watering animals and vegetables,” he says.
Lopus adds that districts like Nabilatuk and Nakapiripirit have marshy lands that hold water for a sizable part of the year. This water can provide suitable avenues for fish farming to flourish. However, no one has seen that vision as yet.
Fish farming, also known as aquaculture, involves the controlled cultivation of fish and other aquatic organisms for food or other purposes. It can be conducted in artificial environments such as ponds, and tanks, or in semi-natural environments like lakes and rivers.
Fish farming contrasts with traditional fishing, which is the harvesting of wild fish.
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General Manager Editorial Daniel Kalinaki Acting Managing Editor Allan Chekwech
Editor, Sustainability Hub Gillian Nantume, Features Editor Caesar Karuhanga Abangirah, Contributor Simon Peter Emwamu
