Catfish lifts driver from poverty

As a driver, Francis Mwangi could not make enough to sustain himself and his family, who depended on him.

Even his own father ran away from their home in Mathari, Nyeri County, when he could not repay debts that had accrued in the family.

Then Mwangi attended a training programme for farmers about fish farming and he decided to give it a try.

“We were poor and with my brother and sister in school, we could barely scrape through until I was taught by Wonderland Fisheries how to make money from fish farming,” says Mwangi.

He decided to risk by depositing Sh65,000 with the fisheries company and had a pond dug to accommodate his first batch of catfish. He says neighbours would laugh at him, wondering how he could just give away money.

“People told me I had been conned and there was no way we were going to recoup the money,” he says.

Photocopied cheque

To the naysayers’ dismay, after five and a half months, the first harvest earned Mwangi Sh300,000, which shocked even the locals. Each kilo of fish is sold for Sh200 and some of the fish grow to as heavy as three kilogrammes.

“I photocopied the cheque and I walk with it to show people that lives can change through this and disapprove those who at first did not believe,” Mwangi says.

Today, he has taken his brother through college to train as a clinical officer and his father is now back home.

Mwangi explains that after the training by Wonderland Fisheries, he requested to be allowed to do just one pond, instead of the mandatory two as required by the company before it engages any fish farmer.

“I just asked them to allow me to do one pond because I did not have enough money for two and I promised not to let them down,” he says.

The fisheries company did a feasibility study on the one-eighth of an acre piece of land, which the family had set aside for the work, and accepted to do one pond and equip it.

“They then brought the fish and feeds. Our responsibility was to feed the fish and change the water in the pond every fortnight,” says Mwangi.

Tap water

The water used in the pond is actually tap water, which is allowed to stay aerated for four hours before it is poured into the pond.

One of the services the company offers is grading, which involves checking on the fish after a month and separating those that are smaller into a second pond so that they are not eaten by the bigger ones. Catfish are cannibals.

After the first cheque, Mwangi paid another Sh65,000 for a second pond, which is now stocked and he hopes to harvest in the next few months.

Mwangi says one factor that attracted him to the business using borrowed money was availability of market in Kenya and beyond.

The company has now trained more than 500 farmers across the country. Started in 2013, it was conceived as a simple income-generating project targeting to improve the living standards of Kenyans.

One of the hallmarks of the project is that it requires little space to start and is not labour intensive.

The company management says they chose catfish because of its fast growth. It also requires less labour and minimal running costs. Catfish is also a hardy species of fish that can do well in most parts of Kenya.

With little capital, more farmers are attracted since all that is needed is for the fish to be fed twice each day.

[Jeckonia Otieno]