Fish farming brightens Nakuru man's sunset years

Stephen Karanja feeds his ?sh. ABOVE: Karanja tends his tomatoes. [PHOTOS: BONIFACE THUKU/STANDARD]

NAKURU, KENYA: At 69, Stephen Karanja would ordinarily be sitting on a stool basking in the sun like many men his age across the country. But Karanja has refused to sit idle and has instead ventured into farming and now supplies vegetables and fish to villagers in Mugumo village, Nakuru County.

What has interested him most is fish farming. He has six fish ponds each with 1,000 fish and the old man expects to earn not less than Sh500,000 by the end of the year.

When he started constructing the ponds, Karanja, a former hawker, almost dropped the idea as fellow villagers discouraged him. He went ahead to construct the ponds despite resistance from his wife Joyce Wangui, who now values the fish more than the chicken on their eight acre farm.

"I was told nobody would buy my fish and my compound would be smelly but that has since changed. Some of them now come to ask me where they can buy fingerlings," he said.

Karanja had no prior knowledge of fishing. Last year, he attended a farmers meeting organised by the Ministry of Agriculture where they were taught the importance of fish and how demand was high in Nakuru town. He decided to try his luck.

”I was given a contact person from Homa Bay who supplied me with my first 1,000 tilapia fingerlings at Sh5 each. I increased the ponds gradually and now they are six and each hosts 1,000 fish. I have harvested one pond already and sold each fish for Sh100," he says.

This has amazed the villagers who are now consuming fish, once associated with dirt and a foul smell.

His customers include locals, a Nakuru-based hotel and traders from Njoro and Naishi towns.

Karanja regrets having ventured into fishing so late: "I wish I had started earlier. I would have made good money."

He says he makes food for his fish from sunflower, wheat and rice bran to reduce costs.

He says however, that lack of extension officers has affected his work since there is nobody to advise him: "I emptied my first pond to harvest the fish. It was not economical as even the smallest fish had to be harvested."

According to him, fish farming is cheap compared to other ventures like rearing livestock. On average, he spends between Sh1,000 and Sh3,000 to purchase feeds that include fish pellets. He also makes some food at his home, which includes food waste and vegetables.

He intends to buy a car by the end of the year. "I am getting old and I need to buy a decent car. I will be taking my produce for sale in Njoro and Nakuru," he says.

To supplement his fish farming, Karanja grows tomatoes and sukuma wiki on his farm under irrigation. He just harvested beans from a section of the same land and now plans to plant white corn.

He says he bought two drip irrigation kits at Sh30,000 and switches them between the tomato and sukuma wiki plots every two days. He tried to grow watermelons and strawberry on a section of the farm but abandoned them after they failed to do well.

He uses water from a nearby dam to irrigate his farm using gravity, using a generator when water levels are low.

He earns about Sh1000 daily from vegetable and tomato sales.

His greatest worry is the outbreak of Tuta absoluta disease, which has wiped out tomatoes in neighbouring farms: "I have been praying to God that my tomatoes are spared. It is so bad."