Week 9 - The Rainy Season

Well its been coming and boy did it hit hard. I made it back to the farm after New Years Day at the lake. Just as I arrived the rains started and they didn't stop for three days. Our drainage canal from the ponds doesn't really function as a drainage canal anymore, instead its a full, fast flowing river, full of catfish which have come up from the Shire River. Last year this issue resulted in a croc entering the farm and eating some of the fingerlings. This drainage problem will need rectifying when the rains eventually stop.

The rains have been particularly bad this year, according to the locals. The farm has become completely cut off from the outside world and my beautiful green ponds are full of muddy water, which backed up when the drainage canal flooded. There goes the feed trials! Worse still is the increase in bugs, all looking for somewhere dry, which just so happens to be my tent, office and toilet!!

Losing the feed trials is not such a huge issue, in fact, its beneficial for me to see the impact of the rains on the farm. I can now make sound recommendations for future development and construction. If I hadn't seen the farm in this state, money on reconstructing the farm may have been misused.

Unfortunatley, the rains did get particularly bad and I had to leave the farm one night. Trekking and wading through rivers to get to some dry land where a motorbike would get me back to the main road. It was a mission, made worse by running out of fuel, buying some off the black market, running out of that, then having to siphon some out of  a friends car. All to go 13km!

Africa.

This was our drainage canal, ponds to the left are compromised as overflow pipes are now inlets

The rains coming in

The effects of the rains on the ponds

This was the third spider found that morning, after one in my tent, one in the shower and nowthis bad boy in the office

Week 8 - Christmas and New Year

A break from the farm for a bit, but before I left the community requested a small party. I arranged to get a goat, some maize and a few soft drinks and the community had a nice party to end the year.

I set off back to Blantyre to spend Xmas and New Year with Kate's family. They were heading to Mozambique so it was a great opportunity to get my travelling shoes on and see some more of Africa. We took the boat and kayaks to the Indian Ocean and did some fishing. We caught one kingfish the whole time, but I did see some yellowtail tuna for the first time which was cool.

On the way back to Malawi the axel on the boat snapped and we were stranded 300km from the border with a boat in the dirt. Luckily, surviving in Africa is all about who you know, and Kate knew a guy, who knew another guy, who lived 5 km from where we crashed!

He was a South African who owned an 8000ha farm, producing ethanol and whiskey. He quickly got us off the road and back to his farm where we spent the night and had a BBQ. He was looking to pick up some info on fish farming, so we exhanged details and I now have some additional work.

Its all about who you know!!!

The one and only Kingfish

Kayaking in the Indian Ocean

White Sand and Clear Water, Happy Xmas!

Week 7 - Feed Trials

Following the grading, I decided this week we would carry out some simple feed trials. At present we have three ponds that we know the stocking density of as well as the average size. We then have a further pond which apparently has 150g+ fish in but an unknown amount.

I decided to have four different scenarios going on in the ponds, they are as follows:

Pond 1 - Organic Manure Only - 24g
Pond 2 - Inorgarnic Manure Only - 24g - 65g
Pond 3 - Feed Only - 24g - 65g
Pond 4 - Organic Manure and Feed - 150g+??

I will attempt to grade the fish next month before having a complete harvest before I leave in order to see if we have any greater production in a particular pond. From a scientific point of view, the experiment is poor, most of the fish are likely to have stunted already and growth over such a short time is hard to measure accurately. The other issue is timing, the rainy season is getting closer by the day and I worry about the impacts it will have on the farm.

Neverthless, its further experience for the community and offers them an insight into the different feeding and fertilising methods you can adopt.

For the manure, we constructed a few cribs in the corner of the ponds, made from bamboo and rubber. They succesfully hold the elephant manure quite well. Finally we installed a feed table in one pond to monitor the feeding behaviour.

Constructing a Feed Table

Putting the feed table in the pond

Constructing a crib

Elephant manure in the crib

Week 6 - Teaching the Basics

Its been good to get back to Chikolongo farm, I missed the community and my tent! This week has been all about training a few individuals on the basic prinicpals to tilapia farming.

There are three long term workers on the farm, Philip, Grishan and Lucy. Lucy belongs to the 24 families but Philip and Grishan are external workers. I felt it was important to teach them the areas thatwill be in the final manual, in order to improve their uptake of knowledge when they finally read the manual.

I have a D.O, pH and conductivity meter to test water quality, along with ammonina, nitrite and nitrate testing kits. Given that none of them have had any science lessons in their short school lives, they have been very receptive to the processes and understand why they are needed. Since my lessons they have been using the equipment confidently, so that when levels change within the ponds I'm confident that they know how to manage the changes correctly.

Towards the end of the week, we did some grading in the ponds. Remember, up to this point we still didn't know the numbers in any of the ponds apart from the one we harvested. I decided to grade the fish in to three ponds of different sizes. <25g, 25g - 65g and 65g +. Unfortunately the majority of the fish were under 65g and so we just stocked three ponds with two sizes.

It was a good lesson for myself and the community, we had limited equipment to carry out the grading and if I'm being honest it wasn't the most accurate. I think that it will be a good idea to run some feed trials and see what results if any we will get out of it.

Learning the correct SOP for feeding the fish

Lucy, weighing the fish feed

Grading some fingerlings

Week 5 - Commercial Fish Farming

This last week I have taken some time away from Chikolongo, and worked on a commercial operation down in the escarpment. The farm is predominantly sugar cane, but they have decided to venture in to fish farming. In their current state, the ponds have been constructed and filled, but not yet stocked.

With bridges already built with Maldeco Fisheries, we decided to purchase 18000 fingerlings, requesting 5g as they have the best chance of survival in transit compared to 20g. Transporting the fingerlings is a logistical nightmare, the farm is over 7 hours drive by car and even more by truck, with the sun and heat they would have to move throughout the night. Driving at night in Malawi can be dangerous as cars have no headlights and many people drive drunk. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow for the sake of your fish farm.

I decided to head up to Maldeco the day before to watch over the move. On arrival I noticed the fingerlings being purchased were different sizes, something that will need to be taken into consideration down the line.

It is often the case that every aspect of the move is not thoroughly planned, but after explaining the correct stocking densities required in the bags, making sure they were double bagged, filled with oxygen and water in 3:1 ratio and zip tied to secure, we were ready to go. This highlights the importance of having someone there to oversee the operation.

Arriving at the farm in the morning, the truck had shown up and the bags had been put in to the ponds, unopened. It was improtant to move fast, once the fish had acclimatised, as the sun would get hot, and our fish could suffer high mortalities.

It took the good part of a morning, but we stocked all the remaining fingerlings. Unfortunately I was not able to oversee the entire operation and mortalities caused during transport were high, an issue with using a company located many miles from the farm.

Neverthless it was some more solid experience and a lesson learned.

Advising on the correct prodecure to stock the bags with fingerlings

Filling the bags with oxygen

Releasing and Counting the Fingerlings

A commercial earthen pond

Stocking the bags in to the truck to take down to the farm

Week 4 - Fertiliser Investigations

This whole week has been very interesting indeed! With an appropriate supplementary feed established, I need to look into options for fertilising the ponds. Using fertiliser, inorganic or organic, helps improve the productivity of natural feed within the pond. Tilapia can grow reasonably large just on natural feed, so its important to source a good supply.On the farm we have some ducks, unfortunately their numbers are too low to have any significant impact on the ponds, but they do enjoy their daily swim and that will help a little.

Liwonde National Park is known for having a strong elephant population, and so I spent the earlier part of this week establishing links with park rangers for the collection of elephant dung. Midweek I received a call that they have round up a tonne of the dung, and it was ready for collection. Me and a local worker set off on the motorbike in to the park to investigate the work, it was impressive. We were happy to collect and arranged a truck to pick it up.

Of course, nothing is for free, and even elephant dung has a price. Negotiating with the rangers took time, especially as they had been drinking previously, but in the end we worked it out and payed an amount both parties were happy about. The truck came in to the park and we loaded the manure up by hand! You know you've made it when you're shovelling elephnat dung in to the back of a van somewhere in the middle of Africa! Best job ever!

Back at the farm, we put the manure in to a specially dug area, and will begin applying it to the ponds in the coming days. A week full of new experiences, all absolutely amazing!!

 

Shovelling Shit

Negotiations for the Manure

Week 3 - Feedstuffs and Formulations

Having located a long term supplier of fingerlings, I've now turned my attention to the most important aspect on the farm, feed. Fish feed is often the most expensive operational cost on a farm, and after working out some simple cash flows, I decided it was too expensive for the farm to purchase commercial feed from Maldeco. The next option is to look towards locally available feedstuffs, and establish an appropriate feed formulation taking in to account any seasonality issues that may arise.

This week I have been scowering the local land, talking to small and large farming operations, in an attempt to source good quality feed ingredients for the farm. I've come across the typical things; rice bran, maize, soybean, cottonseed cake, but I've also seen some interesting alternatives such as Jatropha and Moringa, which have good levels of protein but potential issues with their inclusion levels. Fishmeal is not available locally and has to be imported from South Africa, therefore it is not feasible to put in to the feed.

Using a best buy cost analysis formula, it works out that soybean, maize and rice bran are the best ingredients to use on the farm, they are always available and extremely local, so it reduces transport costs. I can also obtain some fish sweepings from the market. I'm not sure of their quality, but perhaps it will contain some of the EAA's which the others feedstuffs lack.

I think I'll bring some back to the Stirling to test for protein and lipid levels.

Some Simple On - Farm Feed drying in the sun

A commercial mill

Low Fat Soybean Meal

Week 2 - Production Planning

It hasn't taken long to settle in to the farm, the community are great fun to work with, and I'm making some lasting friendships. Its improtant to build these relationships, and develop a level of trust with the families as they will be more receptive to the knowledge that I wish to pass on to them.

With little information about the history of the ponds; how many fingerlings were stocked, how much feed has been used, the costs to the farm so far etc, there is a clean slate to work with. I've measured the ponds and determined the potential ouptut from the farm, based on stocking the fish at three per m2. The farm will take on a semi intensive approach using supplementary feed and fertiliser.

With this knowledge I've started some investigative work. Locating a good source of fingerlings seemed like a good place to start, and I found a hatchery about two hours north of the farm, Maldeco Fisheries. They can provide monosex and mixed sex tilapia, whilst offering a 10% mortality fee for fingerlings lost in transit.

They can also provide access to commercial feeds. I discussed potential costings with them and decided I would need to look further in to our budget, as commercial feed is expensive. There's potential there though, and its good to have options. All in all, a good start to investigations.

In my downtime, I have been establishing the camp, working with the local guys to build a toilet, shower, roof over my tent etc. Its been good fun but I wonder if the roof will hold when the rain comes. Only time wil tell I guess.

Community metting to discuss the future of the farm

My Toilet

Bush Living

The roof is a little flat, what do you think?

Week 1 - Settling in to the Farm

Arriving in Blantyre, off the plane, I met Kate Mathias, my contact here in Malawi. We spent the first few days gathering supplies for the farm, before heading North to Liwonde National Park, where the farm is situated.

Once at the farm, I met some of the main employees on the farm as well as the majority of the 24 families. We sat down and had a group meeting on my role over the next three months, and what my expectations and theirs were for the future of the project.

The farm has been running for over 12 months without a single harvest to date. No one knows what size the fish in the ponds are, or how many there are. The community were very keen to get the project moving so I decided first protocol would be to harvest one of the ponds, and have a look at the catch. Needless to say, the 24 families were very happy with this course of action. Given that no market investigations have taken place, the harvest would be shared amongst the families,
but thereafer we will have a more commercial outlook for the farm.

As the majority of the families are ex poachers, they have no problems using seine nets, and have great harvesting techniques. After several attempts, one of the ponds was empty and we had 40Kg of fish to distribute. Everyone was happy, it was a good introduction to the farm, a great way to build the start of our relationship, and a perfect end to the week.

Using a Seine Net

Moving the seine net to the corner in order to pull the fish out

150g tilapia, locally known as Chambo!

The Brief

Chikolongo is situated on the outskirts of Liwonde National Park, Malawi. In 2013, a new fish farm project was developed, based in Chikolongo village, to address the concerns relating to poaching within the National Park and also improve food security and climate resilience for local communities.  24 households are directly engaged in the farm, which consists of seven fish ponds, two duck houses and one hectare of land for agricultural farming.  The farm also has positive impacts on the wider community through provision of water at a safe location away from the river and the protection of crops from animals. 

The farm also includes a six km fence which runs along the Western boundary of Liwonde National Park. The fence is electrified and designed to prevent poachers from entering the park, whilst also deterring elephants from encroaching on local farm land. 

Historically, the local community are engaged in maize and soybean farming, animal protein is often obtained from fish taken illegally from the Shire River which is protected within the National Park. The requirement for a more sustainable dietary source of protein has led to the construction of Chikolongo Fish Farm. Tilapia, locally known as Chambo, are purchased from a commercial hatchery on Lake Malawi and are stocked in to the fish ponds for on-growing to market size.

For the next three months I will be working on the farm, to write a 'Best Management Practice' manual and to develop the skills and knowledge of the 24 families. 

The Entrance to the Farm.