114 Kitojo Wetengere and Aubrey Harris
Marine Aquaculture Production
Marine aquaculture (Mariculture) in Tanzania is generally an extensive
practice involving collection of fingerlings (or seaweed cuttings) from the wild
for rearing and feeding in enclosures (or string racks in the case of seaweed).
Seaweed farming in Tanzania started with Professor Mshigeni of the
University of Dar es Salaam in 1976. Commercial farming started by export
companies in 1989 with experimental farms on the East Coast of Zanzibar.
Crab fattening, shrimp and shellfish farming experiments were conducted in
1990s and early 2000s. Finfish farming was started in mid 1990s through
integrated mariculture pond systems experiment conducted by the Institute of
Marine Sciences (IMS) at Makoba Bay, Zanzibar. During the 2000s, donor
funded projects on seaweed, crab fattening and milkfish farming showed some
success. These projects expanded and to some extent contributed to household
food and income security (Table 2a and 2b). Recently, the farming of sea
cucumber has taken pace in Zanzibar and potential exists as there is high
demand in the international market. However, the main challenge facing the
activity is unavailability of wild fingerlings.
Table 2a. Mariculture production by species in Tanzania mainland
(tonnes/year)Year/
Species2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014Sea
weed2000 2000 3000 3000 2200 4000 5000 5520 6885 6601 6510 6689 -Milk fish - - 2 2 2 2 2 10 8 137 221 203 -
Shrimp - - - - 59 32 302 108 231 290 270 285 -
Crabs - - - - - 0.1 0.3 1.5 5.1 7.0 1.0 - -
Source: FAO (2013).
Data obtained from the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development (2015).
In 2007, there were an estimated 100 milkfish ponds (Msuya and Mmochi,
2007) and in 2008 this had increased to 150 ponds (WIOMSA, 2011). Current
production of milkfish stands at 203 tonnes (2013) in Tanzania and 10 tonnes
(2013) in Zanzibar (Table 2a and 2b). However, milkfish farming has not
taken off on a commercial scale because not much attention has been paid to
economics and marketing considerations, poor transportation infrastructure,
poor site selection and pond construction, most ponds have been constructed
by research institutions rather than the farmers, fingerlings have not been
available and not much attention has been placed on sorting of fingerlings