ANNEX 4 (contd.)

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

Project of the Government of the
People's Republic of Mozambique

PROJECT DOCUMENT

PART I     LEGAL CONTEXT

This Project Document shall be the instrument referred to as such in Article I, paragraph 1, of the Assistance Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of Mozambique and the United Nations Programme, signed by the Parties on 15 September 1976.

The Government Implementing Agency shall, for the purposes of the Standard Basic Agreement, refer to the Government Cooperating Agency described in that Agreement.

PART II     THE PROJECT

A. Development Objectives

The Project is a strategic part of the Government's master plan for fisheries development. The introduction of coastal shrimp culture, which presently does not exist in the country but represents a substantial potential for development, would be its strategic target.

The most important impact of this Project would be that, through a pilot operation aimed at the collection of reliable technical information on shrimp culture in the Mozambican context, and at the training of a nucleus of national specialists, it would increase Government's overall capability for deciding and undertaking the planned development of shrimp farming.

This development, making productive vast areas of tidal swamps which are now iddle and of no economic value, would increase export of shrimp, which is already the major national export commodity, and generate new livehood and employment opportunities for the people through shrimp farming and processing.

B. Immediate Objectives

The immediate objectives of this Project are :

1. The introduction of an appropriate shrimp culture technology, fully adapted to the local condition, making use of an existing saltworks installation and promoting the use of specifically local inputs.

2. The production of reliable information on basic culture parameters such as growth and survival rate under local conditions and production costs and earnings.

3. The determination of the financial and economic feasabilities of shrimp farming in Mozambique, with subsequent formulation of an investment programme for the development of this activity.

4. The demonstration of the new activity and of its outputs to local people who would acquire all practical skills necessary for the continuation of shrimp farming, independent of external technical assistance.

C. Special Considerations

The Project would contribute to the diversification of existing marine economic activities. This would increase employment opportunities for the poor in rural and urban zones and accelerate their integration into the economic development process.

Furthermore, the Project would adapt techniques that have been developed in the UNDP-assisted Development of Coastal Aquaculture Project in Kenya (Project KEN/80/018). This particular project operates a pilot shrimp farm located in Ngomeni which has succesfully demonstrated the viability of farming P. indicus under East African conditions. The technology evolved utilizes natural stock of shrimp fry as seedstock and natural food organisms growing inside the ponds as feed. This simple and inexpensive technology, which has its origin in Southeast Asia will be appropriate for Mozambique, which has no tradition for shrimp culture. Utilizing the Kenya project's results would promote technical cooperation between the two developing countries through visits, fellowships and information exchange.

D. Background and Justification

Background

Shrimp is now Mozambique's major export commodity accounting for almost 30% of the foreign exchange earnings of the country (See Table 1). While all other export commodities, such as cashew nuts (once the major export), appears to have been greatly affected by the security problem in the hinterland, the production of shrimps appear to be unaffected. The volume of export has remained almost stable in the face of declining exports of all other commodities.

Against such background, the Government has taken a very high interest in further developing its shrimp production and export capability in order to increase its foreign trade income. The Government has therefore taken two actions to attain such objective. One is to improve the quality of its shrimp products and increase its exportability as well as its selling price. The other is to explore shrimp farming as a means of stepping up shrimp production.

The 11.000 to 12.000 t of shrimp now being exported annually is totally produced by capture fisheries (4.000 to 5.000 t by the national fleet and joint ventures and the rest by licensed boats) and the level of production has not significantly increased during the last five years.

The stagnation of the yearly production around 12.000 t for the half decade preceeding 1985 has been interpreted by fishery officials to mean that the maximum sustainable yield for shrimps have already been reached, and that any further increase in fishing effort would merely result in a lower catch per unit effort, or worse, in the depletion of the shrimp stock. This is a normal consequence in a natural stock when fishing pressure is increased.

Aquaculture undoubtedly is the key to increasing Mozambique's shrimp production volume. Through shrimp culture a greater proportion of the natural stock of shrimp juveniles could also be made to attain market size. In nature only a very small percentage of shrimp fry are able to reach marketable size with a greater majority being lost through natural mortality. In addition, fishing mortality takes a supplementary toll since many are prematurely recruited into fisheries.

Many countries in Southeast Asia and lately South America, notably Ecuador, have found shrimp farming to be a lucrative and profitable venture. Different levels of technologies from extensive to intensive systems are now available and would merely need to be adapted and refined to suit a given environmental condition, through a pilot shrimp farm.

Justification

Mozambique with its more than 170.000 ha of tidal swamp-lands has a tremendous potential for shrimp farming. It would be a matter of selecting, applying and adapting an appropriate technology already developed in other Third World countries.

It should be noted that this area of 170.000 ha of tidal swamplands is exclusive of some 680.000 ha of mangrove which need not be destroyed and should in fact be allowed to remain and flourish as natural nursing grounds for various marine species, including shrimps.

Another compelling reason to initiate a pilot shrimp farm in Mozambique is existence of an important amount of infrastructures which, once shrimp farming has been adapted to local conditions, could immediately become productive with minimal investment. These infrastructures are represented by well established saltworks which offer favourable possibilities for a rapid application of shrimp farming.

All of the saltworks have a reservoir pond which could immediately be stocked with prawn fry with little prior preparation and be made to produce shrimp without interfering with their normal saltmaking operations. It is estimated that at least 10% of any saltwork consist of such reservoirs. With a total of 3000 ha of saltwork throughout the country, this would be equivalent to 300 ha of growing area. Using currently attainable yields at extensive levels, (300 kg/ha for two crops per year) the saltwork reservoirs have a potential of producing about 90 t of shrimps annually.

It is therefore extremely important for a pilot shrimp farm to be established in Mozambique at the earliest time possible. Once shrimp farming has been tried and demonstrated successfully in the proposed pilot farm, then it could be adapted at larger scale, initially in saltwork reservoirs, and then at large scale venture either through state farms or as cooperative ventures using the Zonas Verdes concept.

Development of the vast areas of idle tidal swamplands into productive shrimps farms would result in livelihood opportunities and employment for the people and increased foreign trade earnings for the national economy.

E. Outputs

The outputs to be produced by this Project are as follows:

1. A 10 ha productive shrimp farm with a technology package specifically adapted to local conditions in terms of design and layout, amount and type of inputs, stocking density, duration of culture period, pond preparation and water management techniques, as well as specific techniques for use in existing saltworks reservoirs, which will serve as a technical model for future development.

2. A concrete information identifying swampland areas suitable for shrimp farm development within the Maputo Bay, indicating whether or not a shrimp hatchery will be necessary for this development, and documenting the financial and economic feasibilities of different development options for shrimp farming.

3. An analysis of the above mentioned information, with identification of investment needs for the development of the new activity.

4. A group of 8 technicians trained in shrimp culture.

F. Activities

1. Project Site

The site selected is an abandoned saltwork at Costa do Sol, a resort area about 6 km away from Maputo City center, and is accessible over very good road.

The developed saltwork area is estimated at 18 ha., surrounded by tidal swampland sparsely vegetated by mangrove trees, mainly Avicennia. A tidal creek opening into Maputo Bay, floods the lower parts of the swampland adjacent to the saltwork during spring tides. Open sea salinity at Maputo Bay ranges from 24 to 28 gpt during the high rainfall months of January to February, and 30 to 34 gpt during the other times of the year.

Like most of the tidal swamplands of Mozambique, the selected site has a ground elevation of between 3.0 to 3.8 m. The saltwork area itself is estimated to be within the 3.5 to 4.0 m elevation. A roadway cutting across the mangrove area and running along the seaward margin of the saltworks effectively prevents sea water from inundating the saltworks even at spring tides.

Since it has previously been developed and operated as a salt farm, the site is already clear and completely devoid of any vegetation or remnants thereof such as roots. and tree stumps. The soil is silty loam in the upper 5 to 10 cm layer and clay loam below. This condition would greatly facilitate pond development.

The saltworks pumphouse is still intact and the electrically driven centrifugal pump with a discharge pipe of 25 cm appears to be still operational. The saltwork was reportedly abandoned only in 1984.

The landward margin of the tidal swampland consists of seasonal swamplands covered with water in the rainy months. It is reported to be normally waterlogged during the rest of the year. Shallow pits dug within the area easily fill with fresh water.

2. Species for Culture

Based upon trawler catches, there are nine species of penaeid shrimps in Maputo Bay.

However, the two most abundant are P. indicus and M. monoceros, which form 42,3% and 41,4% of the total catch respectively. The jumbo tiger shrimp, P. monodon is also found but in very small quantities. So is P. japonicus.

From the point of view of shrimp farming only P. monodon, P. indicus would be of interest to the project since these are the two species known to be capable of being grown commercially in earthen ponds using only natural food organisms.

Between P. indicus and P. monodon however, the former has the advantage of occuring in greater quantities during the fry stage. Since the project intends to first explore the possibility of using natural fry stock during this phase of implementation, P. indicus would be the logical species for Mozambique's first attempt at shrimp farming.

At any rate, once the local manpower in aquaculture has been developed, it would be easy enough in the near future to introduce propagation in hatchery, for the pilot farm to include P. monodon in its program. After all, the pond design need not be specific to a particular species.

3. Project Design and Concept

a) Pilot Farm

The project is envisioned to develop and operate a ten hectarespilot shrimp farm using, as much as practicable, manual labour in the construction. This shall consist of the normal complement of nursery and grow out ponds where low cost shrimp growing technology found viable in other similar environments can be tried under semi-commercial production scale. While the usual modern field monitoring equipment shall be provided, these shall be used solely for the purpose of recording pond parameters and would not be made essential in carrying out normal pond culture management procedures.

Due to the relatively high ground elevation, a mechanical pump is believed necessary to augment tidal supply. As much as practicable, however, the farms will be operated using the natural tidal flow. The engineering details and actual farm design can be finalized only upon project execution after the necessary topographic and boundary surveys have been conducted.

The Project shall as much as possible rely on locally available materials for inputs. This would consist possibly of tea-seed for controlling unwanted species and chicken and cow manure to enhance pond productivity. The UNDP assisted Coastal Aquaculture Project in Kenya, it should be noted, has shown that more than 250 kg of shrimps (P. indicus) can be grown per hectare in a three months period using only natural food.

Appropriate technology in this case would mean a culture method which would yield up to the carrying capacity of the pond without application of expensive feed materials. While total yields in such technology would not approach the level attainable under intensive conditions as practiced in more developed countries such as Japan and Taiwan, return on investment could be much higher due to the low operating and maintenance cost. Furthermore, the simplicity of the system tends itself to dissemination to target users who do not have any background in shrimp culture. Such low technology system also has a higher margin of errors.

b) Natural Fry Supply Survey

Simultaneous with the pilot pond trials, a survey of natural fry grounds shall be conducted in order to estimate abundance and seasonality. This shall be conducted by sampling with standard fry collective gears at various parts of the country's shoreline. For this type of work, the regular fry collecting gear made of bamboo poles and nylon net used by ordinary fry gatherers in the Philippines might be appropriate.

Through this survey the Project shall be able to determine whether or not an hatchery might be necessary as part of subsequent development phases in order to support a shrimp farming growing industry.

c) Shrimp Culture in Salt Farm Reservoir

After conducting one or two successful runs in the pilot farm, the Project will seek to cooperate with existing saltworks in integrating shrimp farming with their operation. The necessary preparation will be made in the reservoir, such as installation of screen to prevent the entry of extraneous species and water control structures to maintain a desired depth at all times in the ponds. Seeding with natural fry at regulated density will be then undertaken and the resulting yields monitored.

d) Site Suitability Survey

During the development phase of the Project, areas within the Maputo Bay, particularly at Matola, shall be surveyed and suitable shrimp farm sites identified.

This survey, it should be stressed, will not intend to cover the entire Mozambique coastline.

e) Fellowships and Technicians Training

While the Project facilities are still being developed four technicians, preferably with a post-secondary education or with equivalent work experience with the Institute of Fisheries, will be selected and sent abroad for hands-on training in shrimp farming. It is proposed that the training be conducted for at least one culture cycle (4 months) at the UNDP Project in Kenya (Project KEN/80/018). Upon their return they will be expected to work at the pilot farm at Costa do Sol and in turn disseminate their knowledge to the pond caretakers.

The national project coordinator will be given a fellowship to visit and observe shrimp farms in Southeast Asia in addition to an observation tour in Kenya.

f) Investment Analysis

At the conclusion of the 30 months duration of the Project, an expert in financial analysis will be engaged to examine the operation and production data in order to assess the financial viability of the new activity. On this basis, an investment programme for shrimp farming in Mozambique will be prepared to guide future investors.

G. Inputs

1. Government Inputs

a) Personnel

b) Pond Facilities

Ten hectares earthen pond system with potential outlying area for possible future expansion.

c) Topography

Topographic and boundary survey of the selected area at Costa do Sol.

2. UNDP Input

a) Personnel (Qualification and Terms of Reference in Annex I)

• Short term experts as needed - 3 months

• Administrative support, Senior Secretary - 30 months. locally recruited.

b) Training

• Four fellowships of 4 months in the region.

• One 4 months study tour.

c) Equipment and Supplies

• Field and Laboratory Equipment such as pumps, monitoring instruments, etc.

• Two transport vehicles.

• Office Equipment such as typewriter, micro-computer, etc

• Expendables : nets, chemicals, etc.

d) Sub-contract

Light buildings on site for office, workshop, technicians and caretakers quarters, participation to the preparation of pond.

e) Miscellaneous

• Fuel, operation, report and sundry.

H. Preparation of Work Plan

A detailed Work Plan for implementation of the Project will be prepared by the shrimp oulture expert, in consultation with the national project coordinator. This will be done at the start of the Project. Periodic reviews of the exact work plan, to be agreed by all the parties involved, will be undertaken. The agreed upon Work Plan will be attached to the Project Document as Annex II and will be considered as part of the document.

I. Preparation of the Framework for Effective Participation of National and International Staff in the Project

The activites necessary to produce the indicated outputs and achieve the Project's immediate objective will be carried out jointly by the national and international staff assigned to it. The respective roles of the national and international staff will be determined by their leaders, by mutual discussion and agreement, at the beginning of the Project, and set out in a Framework for effective Participation of National and International Staff in the Project. The Framework, which will be attached to the Project Document as Annex III, will be reviewed from time to time. The respective roles of the national and international staff shall be in accordance with the established concept and specific purpose of technical cooperation.

J. Development Support Communications

None.

K. Institutional Framework

The Project shall be implemented by the Secretariat of State for Fisheries through its Fisheries Research Institute (Instituto de Investigação Pesqueira). The Institute has a division of aquaculture which is now working on mussel farming. Another division on resource assessment has the capability and has in fact conducted some limited study on the shrimp fry resource.

L. Prior Obligation and Prerequisites

In order for the Project to be implemented, it is necessary for it to obtain official permit for the use of the abandoned saltwork area at Costa do Sol. Although the pilot farm envisioned will occupy only ten hectares, it would be ideal to have a 25 to 30 ha area reserved for the Project for future development.

M. Future UNDP Assistance

Future UNDP assistance will be considered upon completion of the Project, if necessary, and subject to resources availability.

PART III     SCHEDULES OF MONITORING, EVALUATION AND REPORTS

A. Tripartite Monitoring Reviews: Technical Reviews

The Project will be subject to periodic review in accordance with the policies and procedures established by UNDP for monitoring project and programme implementation.

B. Evaluation

The Project will be subject to evaluation, in accordance with the policies and procedures established for this purpose by UNDP. The organization, terms of reference and timing of the evaluation will be decided by consultation between the Government, UNDP and the Executing Agency concerned.

C. Progress and Terminal Reports

Periodic Progress Reports will be submitted by the Team Leader in accordance with UNDP policies and precedures.

An Agency terminal report will be prepared and submitted upon completion of the Project in accordance with UNDP policies and procedures.

PROJECT BUDGET COVERING UNDP CONTRIBUTION
(In US Dollars)

PROJECT BUDGET COVERING GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTION
(in Contos - 1.000 Meticais) (*)

* Costings do not cover inflation

ANNEX 1

QUALIFICATIONS AND TERMS OF REFERENCE
OF THE EXPATRIATE PERSONNEL

A. POSITION:     SHRIMP CULTURIST/TEAM LEADER

B. № OF MAN/MONTHS: 30

C. TERMS OF REFERENCE: The incumbent will have operational and administrative responsibility of the project - more specifically, he will:

1. Supervise project operation in coordination with counterpart and pilot farm manager.

2. Adapt shrimp farming technology using natural food organisms as feed to local conditions obtained in Mozambique.

3. Carry out shrimp fry resource surveys.

4. Screen and formulate methods of using local materials as shrimp farm inputs.

5. Develop local manpower capability in shrimp farming.

6. Carry out site selection surveys within the Maputo Bay area.

D. QUALIFICATION

1. Must have at least a M.Sc. Degree in Fisheries, Aquaculture, or related field.

2. Minimum of five years experience in shrimp farm management and operation covering both extensive (fertilized) as well as semi-intensive systems.

A. POSITION :     AQUACULTURE ENGINEER

B. N^o OF MAN/MONTHS : 6

C. TERMS OF REFERENCE :

1. To prepare the preparation of plans, design and specification of shrimp farm facilities.

2. To assist in organizing the pond construction team/or the selection of job contractors.

3. To assist in site suitability surveys within the Maputo Bay area.

D. QUALIFICATION :

1. Civil Engineering Degree with five years experience in designing and construction management involving earthen ponds and waterways preferably as part of coastal aquaculture facilities.

A. POSITION:     POND ECOLOGIST

B. № OF MAN/MONTHS: 3

C. TERMS OF REFERENCE:

1. To identify natural food organisms occuring in both unfertilized and fertilized pond bottoms and quantify their abundance.

2. To assist in determining carrying capacity of ponds.

3. To recommend ways of enhancing pond productivity to favour growth of natural organisms.

4. To assist in determining best agriculture by - products and fertilizers.

D. QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Graduate degree in aquatic biology with specialization in productivity and energetics, with at least five years field research experience.