23-August-2023
The IDEV team conducted a field visit to Zambia in September 2022 to witness first-hand the investments made by the Zambian Government in the framework of the TAAT-1 program. The IDEV Project Cluster Evaluation of the AfDB’s Technology for African Agriculture Transformation (TAAT) Program – Phase I examined TAAT-I’s strategic orientation and the program’s relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability throughout its duration, from February 2018 to September 2022.
This interview with Mukonda Royd, Managing Director of Mukasa Agrosolutions and Fish Farm Ltd in Zambia, provides a glimpse of how IDEV evaluators collect data from project beneficiaries to provide evaluative evidence to support the Bank’s strategies and interventions.
Tell us about yourself and the cooperative
We are located in Mukasa, a 4-hectare plot on the Mulungushi river in Zambia. We build our man-made ponds to breed and sell tilapia and catfish across the country and beyond, in the Southern region of Africa. We also provide consultancy services on fish breeding and the production of fingerlings.
How has the Mukasa farm benefited from the TAAT program in Zambia?
We came in contact with the TAAT program in 2018 and did the TAAT-1 aquaculture training at the World Fish Center in Abassa, Egypt that year. With the knowledge gained on farming technologies, we have improved our strategies and made a lot of changes to our operations here in Zambia.
Can you give us a tangible example of improvement since the TAAT training you received?
Before TAAT, we only had Tilapia in our hatchery, and the production capacity was about 50,000 fingerlings per month. However, the TAAT program helped us to develop a proper breeding system with our broodstock and the fish feed for the broodstock. After the training, we expanded our breeding program and increased our capacity to over 700,000 fingerlings per month.
What further training would benefit Zambian fish farmers today?
The two main challenges faced by Zambian fish farmers are the lack of high-quality fingerlings and the high cost of quality fish feed. To achieve our fish breeding goals, we need to learn how to locally produce high-quality fish feed at a low cost. Specifically, it would be helpful for TAAT to increase the scope of its capacity building to include exposure to best practices in fish feed production in countries such as Nigeria, where Zambian farmers can learn techniques for producing feed and then start producing it locally.
How can we improve the aquaculture component of the TAAT program?
TAAT funds have mostly been used for providing training with World Fish in agriculture technologies. Direct financial support can help Mukasa provide more training and broodstock to farmers in underserved areas of Zambia. At present, the Farm relies on its own limited resources to provide fishing technologies to farmers on a voluntary basis.
Note from IDEV Evaluation Officer, Eustace Uzor, on the achievements in Zambia related to aquaculture.
“In Zambia, the government and stakeholders focused efforts on developing the supply-side of the aquaculture sector, such as increasing the production of high-quality fingerlings. Conversely, there was limited focus on market development, storage, and value creation for fish products. The imbalance between the supply and demand side undermined the viability of aquaculture activities for smallholder fish farmers in Zambia.”