Capacity Development
ThinkAqua is working in several countries and with many farmers, groups and organisations to support capacity development - covering practical on-farm training programmes for tilapia farmers in Rwanda, all the way through to governance improvements in the shrimp industry in Indonesia.
>> Our biggest current project is the Scaling Commercial Aquaculture project, supported by Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Uganda and delivered in partnership with COFAD. There are several strands to this project, including the replication and scaling of the RAD commercial hub model; addressing technical challenges in feed and seed supply; and developing market value chains. We are also supporting the strategic development of the Uganda Commercial Fish Farmers Association as THE representative organisation for the sector. The UCFFA will also provide best practice guidance and market development support to members.
>> In Kenya we run an internship programme where students from the UK, Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya work together on research projects at Victory Farms. This is currently funded by the Zoetis A.L.P.H.A. Plus Initiative and aims to establish an impact monitoring framework to understand the environmental and social impacts of large-scale aquaculture in Lake Victoria. The student pairs are researching fish health (e.g., disease & biosecurity); local environmental impacts (e.g., water quality); global environmental impacts (e.g., GHG emissions); fisheries interactions (e.g., interactions between infrastructure and wild fisheries/ecosystems); and social impacts (e.g., on surrounding communities). We aim to repeat this programme on an annually.
>> In Indonesia we are working with Conservation International, Konservasi Indonesia, Yayasan Singergi Akuakulture Indonesia, various local government agencies (fisheries, environment, planning, governor's office), the Shrimp Club of Indonesia branch and other local farmers, feed companies and processors to strengthen the governance of the sector in Banyuwangi, East Java. This Jurisdictional Initiative is funded by Walmart Foundation and covers governance aspects on legality/farm registration, environmental quality, disease risk reduction, access to finance and blue carbon. We are very excited that the consortium have just received funding from Walmart Foundation to scale this model into Situbondo regency, where the local government and industry have been following progress in Banyuwangi over the last few years and are keen to replicate the approach.
>> Our farmer training in Rwanda is funded by the European Union and the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg through LuxDev as part of Enabel and TeamEurope engagement with Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board. We have developed training manuals and delivered training to pond farmers on both tilapia and catfish production; provided post-harvest training to market actors; taken a deep-dive with two specialist trainings to cage farm operators; and brought a global expert team to strengthen the feed sector.
