A study was carried out in Eastern Province by Ms. Gertrude Ngenda, consultant socio-economist, to assess the effectiveness of the approaches used. The main findings were that fish farming had been actively promoted in the province with the result that many farmers became aware of fish farming and adopted the activity. Due to the large number of fish farmers the DoF did not have the capacity anymore to give proper advice to all the farmers. Besides the extension material most widely used, the extension pamphlets, were produced to introduce fish farming but did not contain information about problems fish farmers were facing in the management. New extension material had to be produced for this purpose. The DoF was also not able to provide the large number of fish farmers with the required fingerlings. Especially this year when many more ponds than usually have dried up the demand for fingerlings was much greater than in normal years. This insufficient follow up and lack of fingerlings had already demotivated many fish farmers.
The collaboration with the DoA had given good results but depended much on the personnel interest in fish farming of the extension workers, and on the willingness to collaborate from the staff of both departments.
