Rural Agricultural Cooperatives Move Into Fish Farming
Mozambique |
Agriculture, Economic Growth |
2005
Agriculture extension services play an important role in Mozambique, where four of five people live in rural areas and most survive by subsistence farming. USAID-funded food security programs, which are run by private voluntary organizations like CARE, rely heavily on locally hired extension agents, who work with groups of small-scale farmers to help them grow more food and increase their incomes. USAID also is working to strengthen the government's capacity to deliver quality extension services.
A group of small-scale farmers who operate a fish farm use a net to collect tilapia fingerlings. These will be used to help other farmers start fish farming and thereby diversify their income sources.
Photo Credit:
Suzanne Poland/USAID
Since 1999, USAID has participated in a multi-donor institutional reform initiative called PROAGRI to help the Ministry of Agriculture reform its central operations, and improve the services it provides to small-scale farmers. Ultimately, the initiative will help farmers increase production and join the shift from subsistence to more commercial farming. A portion of the $30 million in USAID funding for PROAGRI flows to the district level, where local agriculture officials plan how it should be spent with community input.
In 2002, CARE and the district-level Ministry of Agriculture decided to work together to introduce fish farming to agriculture cooperatives in several districts of Nampula Province. USAID and its partners are investing in a project to help small-scale farmers improve their diets and expand their income-generating activities by learning how to farm tilapia, a good source of protein. Farmer groups establish successful operations then help other groups by providing them with tilapia fingerlings to start their own fish ponds. This collaborative effort is strengthening Mozambique's capacity for sustainable development of its agriculture sector.