The members of our pilot gardens have mastered the aquaculture process, from fish breeding all the way through to harvest.
After two years of diligent work on our pilot aquaculture project, our team and partners agree: it is an absolute game changer for market gardens! We went into this project with high hopes but a healthy dose of skepticism. Would we be able to sustain perpetual production, could we develop sustainable supply chains for fish feed, and what would the impact be on the gardens’ precious water resources?
Carefully tracking the number, weight, and health of the fish enables participants to maximize growth and use fish feed most efficiently.
Watching our partners master the process and slowly answer these questions over the past two years has been incredible. The hard data shows the success in numbers; each of our pilot gardens have increased their yields and profits dramatically, all with zero net increase in water use. More importantly though, the participant testimonials show the real impacts:
“Our children and everyone in the house eats fish from the project now. We get money from the fish, and we use the water to irrigate our crops which helps them to grow. We really see the effect in the garden.”
“We don’t trust the fish from the market. It comes from the ocean, and we don’t know how old it is. Now we have our own fish right here. We can go now and have it right away and cook it immediately. We thank god for this.”
Keur Soce High School joined the project as well this year with two fish basins in their new STEM teaching garden, and due to their quick success and all the benefits we’ve seen, Andando is now seeking to integrate fish farming into all of our gardens over the next several years.
Students learning hands-on aquaculture skills at the new STEM teaching garden at Keur Soce High School.
Thanks to a generous grant from The Tomberg Family Philanthropies, we are taking our first steps in this direction by extending the project to two gardens in our Podor region this year. With your support, we can expand even further and help our partners to gain greater food security, nutrition, and financial stability.
A member of the Keur Wack garden shows off her lettuce seedlings. All of our pilot gardens have increased their production of fast growing high value crops.