Strengthening Business Practices of Small Scale Fish Farmers

Smallholder farmers face a double constraint: On the one hand, they do not access state-of-the art of agronomic knowledge and skills. On the other hand, they lack entrepreneurial skills (planning, marketing, financial literacy) to manage their agro-enterprises well. Research from Kenya as well as experiences of the Belgian development-NGO TRIAS in Uganda show that a well-timed combination of building both types of skills produces substantial improvement in smallholder farmers' business results and eventually livelihoods of their families. This SI aims at replicating those experiences in the aquaculture value chain of the Rwenzori region. The SI will reap synergies of the TRIAS experience, the financial literacy training and research experience of MMU's School of Business & Management Studies (SBMS), and the ongoing agronomic aquaculture research under the IUC between MMU and UGent. The SI will build capacity of at least 350 farmers to improve their individual fish farms, at least 140 farmers to form and lead groups; furthermore, it will link these farmers to financial service providers.