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Sharon Shayanewako

IN a move that promotes demographic inclusivity, the Government has introduced commercial cage fish farming for youths under the Presidential Fisheries Programme in a move meant to make fish farming attractive to the age group.

This will boost youths’ involvement in agriculture and contribute to the country’s economic development in line with Government’s policy to mainstream participation of youths in national programmes. The move operationalizes the Government’s mantra of ‘leaving no one or no pace behind’ mantra as the country moves towards attaining Vision 2030.

Agriculture is one of the major pillars of the country’s economy, hence the Government’s thrust to empower youths who constitute 62 percent of the total population of Zimbabwe.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, acting director Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Milton Tinashe Makumbe said the programme was meant to empower youths countrywide.

“We have developed a particular concept note, which is specific for youths whereby in a dam, for instance, we are looking at reserving almost a quarter of the water body for cage farming. They will be putting various sizes of cages, then introduce sex reversed fingerlings to grow before they harvest them between six and nine months.

“There is an option for the youths to venture into fish farming and make use of the various water bodies countrywide. There are above 10 000 water bodies scattered across the country and youths can actually come together and make use of them for the project. The good thing is that when they use cage fish farming, the fish are confined to that cage and are not readily accessible to the community,” he said.

Cage farming is more commercial where an individual is doing it for sale and to boost consumption.

Added Mr Makumbe: “We hope that participating youths will include sex reversed fingerlings in the cages, which will be harvested later. In the long-run, what we are looking at setting up processing plants or processing companies within the respective provinces especially in the hotspots or hubs where there is a lot of fish production. Our youths will be harvesting fish from the dams and processing them into fillet among other products.”

Zimbabwe’s agriculture is on the upswing with young people being actively involved. The introduction of Provincial Agriculture Training Hubs, which equip young farmers with knowledge and skills as well as providing them with starter packs is one of the Government policies, which enable the youngsters to fully participate in agriculture.

More than 3 000 youths have received training on agriculture innovation at Provincial Integrated Youth Development Centres under a programme set up by the Government to boost their involvement in agricultural activities and contribute to the country’s economic development.

The centres act as demonstration sites where youths in the province come and learn new skills and new ways of improving agricultural productivity.

The Ministry’s Rural Development chief livestock specialist Ms Rutendo Nyahoda recently said centres were created for the benefit of the youths and the programme was successfully running in all provinces as they empower the youths with knowledge, skills and start-up inputs or assets for agricultural projects.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmer’s Union (ZCFU) president, Dr Shadreck Makombe said young farmers were largely benefiting in agriculture from different angles.

“The youths or young farmers have benefited and are continually benefiting from the land on which they work. They are also benefiting from agricultural empowerment projects and many other policies, which include partnerships, joint ventures, value addition and other many others.

The President last year directed each provincial minister to identify a 500-hectare piece of land, which would be dedicated to youth projects, as part of the Government’s policy to ensure youths participate in national programmes.