Speaking to Agriculture he described aquaculture as one of the new emerging industries for animal protein production. “The Gambia is luck to have such potential. However, he pointed out that the success of aquaculture development relies on human factors.
“Aquaculture is the kind of monitoring-intensive work and needs a diligent workforce since the survival of fishes or shrimps in ponds cannot afford waiting,” he said, adding that aquaculture development requires the completion of its industry cluster so that the mass production could be feasible. Production components of the industry cluster in priority are: grow-out farm, hatchery, feed plant and processing plant.
He then elaborated: “Grow-out is the main core of the industry and its growth needs the essential platform consisting of hatchery and feed plant.”
Commenting on the start-line of the project, Mr Chen said 10 small ponds to serve the functions of brood-stocking and spawning- will be created. “Its productivity will highly depend on the level of surrounding supports. However, we expected that an initial yearly productivity at early stage could be as much as US$1 million, as soon as the required supports are complete,” he said.
Source: DailyObserver