Fish farming household food security and livelihoods in western Kenya

This book focuses on the socio-economic characteristics of fish farmers and their practices; opportunities and challenges facing fish farming development; effect of fish farming on household food security and livelihoods and strategic options for improving fish farming for enhancing household food security and livelihoods in Western Kenya. Kenyan fish farming potential has been underexploited and it remains under developed where pond productivity is low and not rising, despite the effort of several players. Capture fish in Lake Victoria and rivers has subsequently declined due to overfishing and influence of water hyacinth. Fish farming has accounted for only about 3% of total fish production until the introduction of the Fish Farming Enterprise Productivity Program in 2009 a programme by Kenyan Government initiatives to stimulate economic development and foster economic recovery, poverty alleviation and spur development. The challenges facing fish farming development in Kenya is shortage of good quality seed and feeds. Tilapia species is mostly cultured because of the following attributes; grows faster, breeds easily in ponds, tolerates a wide range of environmental conditions.

Zacharia Shitote is a part-time lecturer and a PhD student at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology. He holds a masters degree in Project Planning and Management from the university of Nairobi. Currently he's engaged in writing curriculum for fish farmers in Kenya a tri-lateral project of Kenya, Israel and Germany.