Restored fish farm to help fight food insecurity

The rehabilitation of a fish farm outside Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo (ROC), is expected to be an important step in moving the country towards greater food security. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has estimated that 32 percent of country’s population suffer from hunger. The level of agricultural production in the ROC has remained low due to widespread conflict and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in the past decade in the country's highly productive central region, thereby increasing the country's reliance on imported food. Food security has deteriorated considerably in zones of conflict, and inhabitants of these regions have seen their food reserves depleted. The rehabilitation of the fish farm, in the town of Djoumouna, about 23 km south of the capital, was achieved with an Italian government grant of 37 million francs CFA (about US $57,000). With additional support from local NGOs and the Community Action project of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), eight ponds and numerous channels were rehabilitated and stocked with fish, and surrounding buildings, including a laboratory and stockroom, were refurbished. Henceforth, the fish farm is to be used as a research and training institute to support fish-farming activities of rural pisciculturists from around the country. "The research will aim to simplify and adapt fish-cultivation techniques to make them practical for use by rural pisciculturists," Gastrone Banimba, a spokesman for the UNDP Community Action project, told IRIN. The piscicultural station of Djoumouna, which was first established in 1952, is one of the largest such farms in Central Africa, with a surface area of 6.2 ha. It was destroyed during fighting in the war of 1998-1999. Before civil war erupted in ROC in June 1997, the markets of Brazzaville and various localities of the now embattled Pool region were regularly supplied with fish at affordable prices.