Aquaculture expertise in Kenya

Together with its Nordic and African partners, Turku University of Applied Sciences is developing fish farming expertise in East Africa. The whole production chain from primary production and training to marketing and sales will be covered.

Text by Martti Komulainen

A dozen or so Saimaa lakes would fit into Lake Victoria, the largest freshwater lake basin in Africa and the second largest in the world. Lake Victoria is the setting for the Aquadevbus project to develop fish farming skills in Kenya.

-“We will bring Nordic knowledge and training expertise in sustainable fish farming to the region and also pave the way for business cooperation to increase fish farming production in East Africa,” says Jari Hietaranta, Project Manager and leader of the Logistics and Transport research group.

Lake Victoria is Africa’s fishpond, producing one million tonnes of fish a year. The lake’s native species, Nile perch and Nile tilapia, are also farmed in culture bags. However, farming skills are still relatively undeveloped.

-In the initial phase of the project, we mapped the current state of the art of aquaculture as a student project. The results showed that there is a clear need to develop aquaculture knowledge.

Strong aquaculture expertise in the Nordic countries

Mbare Otieno , a business lecturer at Turku University of Applied Sciences, has good networks in Kenya and saw opportunities for cooperation and a project to develop aquaculture. Among the local players involved in the project were Great Lakes University of Kisumu, Rongo University and the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute.

Aquadevbus´ project partners are strong aquaculture experts from the Norwegian Arctic University UiT in Tromsø and Livia, a vocational school for fish farmers in Finland. The role of Turku University of Applied Sciences is to develop educational and business expertise. The whole fish farming production chain is therefore covered, from training and production of fish farmers to sales.

The production is also looking for solutions for fish feed production. Currently, imported feed is used for farming when it would be more sustainable to use local resources.

The project is funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ programme. From Turku University of Applied Sciences, the research groups Entrepreneurship and Value Creation and Logistics are involved. The coordinator is the Great Lakes University of Kisumu.

AQUADEVBUS project develops aquaculture education in Kenya

The AQUADEVBUS project will pay particular attention to the following areas:

• integrated aquaculture

• pedagogical practices

• knowledge transfer through methods to share knowledge and skills to develop the business of aquaculture farms.

Discover the AQUADEVBUS project