None of the farmers trained in Tilapia fingerling production adapted the fingerling management techniques as taught in the course. There are several reasons for this. The techniques taught require that ponds be set aside for the use of fingerling production. For the enterprise to be successful, there needs to be a market for the fingerlings produced. However, at the time of the study there was no established, regular market for fingerlings. There is little communication between the fish farmers, and while a certain demand does exist, it is very difficult to quantity and the producers only received sporadic orders. The project had hoped that the farmers would work as their own salesmen, contacting potential clients and selling the fingerlings on their own. While this did occur to some extent, it was not possible to measure these contacts.
In actual practice, the farmers continued to manage all their ponds for production of table size (250 g) fish. The ponds were stocked at a ratio of 2 fish/m2, no consideration was made as to the sex ratio in the pond. The ponds were manured with compost and animal dung, the fish were fed over a period of 6 – 10 months with either rice bran or a composed feed supplied by the project. After this time period, fish were harvested for sale.
Fingerlings sold by the farmers could be considered as a “bi-product” to the main objective of producing larger fish. Basically, when ever there was a request for Tilapia fingerlings from another, farmer, the fingerling producer would use the net supplied by the project and simply seine 25 – 40 g fingerlings from the production ponds.
Not with standing this modest technique for Tilapia fingerling production, the initial results obtained are encouraging. Table I summarizes the results obtained by the trained fingerling producers in Migori District for the remaining 4 months of 1993 and the entire 12 months of 1994 following their training by the project.
TABLE I
TILAPIA FINGERLING SALES FROM PRIVATE PRODUCERS MIGORI DISTRICT
| FARMER | NUMBER OF PONDS | TOTAL POND AREA | 1993 (4 MONTHS) | 1994 (12 MONTHS) | TOTALS |
| Amato | 4 | 1 782 | 1 000 | 3 086 | 4 088 |
| Ogango | 3 | 1 430 | 3 540 | 0 | 3 540 |
| Amamo | 2 | 580 | 1 200 | 0 | 1 200 |
| Okendo | 3 | 650 | 5 132 | 908 | 6 040 |
| Lango | 5 | 1 140 | 500 | 2 340 | 2 840 |
| Akoko | 3 | 1 450 | 1 450 | 4 210 | 5 660 |
| Alouch | 19 | 3 427 | 600 | 600 | 1 200 |
| Kisuge | 5 | 1 656 | 1 723 | 0 | 1 723 |
| Muonya | 3 | 882 | 2 994 | 7 140 | 10 134 |
| Ambayo | 1 | 750 | 0 | 3 044 | 3 044 |
| Kisino | 2 | 914 | 0 | 2 060 | 2 060 |
| Akal | 3 | 500 | 0 | 900 | 900 |
| Aduo | 3 | 582 | 0 | 1 250 | 1 250 |
| Sigiria | 5 | 1 375 | 0 | 1 200 | 1 200 |
| Obure | 2 | 300 | 260 | 612 | 872 |
| Jayo | 3 | 379 | 0 | 1 136 | 1 136 |
| TOTALS | 66 | 14 585 | 4 354 | 28 486 | 46 885 |
Using the entire surface area, there is an average production value of 2 fingerlings/m2/year, which is less than the necessary number for replacement. In Western Kenya, the recommended management practice for small scale Tilapia farming is a stocking density of 2 fish / m2 with a rearing cycle of 6 to 8 months. If all fish stocks are to be replaced, the theoretical requirement for Tilapia fingerlings is then 3 to 4 fingerlings/m2/year. However, it may be that the above farmers retained enough fingerlings to re-stock their own ponds and only the surplus was sold, they also may have had excess fingerlings that were not sold and thus not recorded.
