In December 2006 Mr John Mushi in Bagamoyo harvested a ton of milkfish from his pond.
”The fish were sold at about 2400 Tanzanian shillings/kg and the incomes were in total 2.3 million Tanzanian shillings” says Dr Aviti Mmochi, field coordinator of the SUCCESS mariculture project.

This successful harvest made Mr Mushi the first milkfish millionaire in Tanzania. His company Regent Enterprises started to construct the 1 ha pond in November 2005. Fingerlings from the sea were stocked into the pond in May 2006. To protect the fingerlings, wooden stakes with fliers tied on them were put into the pond to scare away birds, especially ducks. Despite these efforts, only 60 % of the fingerlings survived and became adults. Even though the mortality was high, Mr Mushi could harvest as much as one ton of fish from the pond.

The marketing of the fish was done very strategically. Mr Mushi, the farmer, harvested only a fourth of the fish stock at a time and stored the fish in a deep freezer. He picked samples and visited restaurants in Dar Es Salaam who after having seen the fish, placed their orders. The market was good, any amount of fish Mr Mushi harvested could be sold in one day. The customers liked the taste and even after the farmed fish were finished, they kept calling him for more.

The pond has a potential to produce more fish, but it was difficult to catch enough fingerlings to put in.
“The way we are looking at it now is that the only limit for Mr Mushi to have a good production of milkfish, is fingerling availability” says Dr Mmochi from the SUCCESS project. The scientists are now studying sources and seasonalities of fingerlings to overcome the last hurdle in the milkfish farming demonstration pond. The project also wants to do research on fry collection. Fry, when available, are plentiful and easy to collect, as they are passive compared to actively swimming fingerlings.

“For other areas where fingerlings seem to be available through-out the year, like Mkuranga and Tanga, the experiences from the demonstration site at Bagamoyo is enough for somebody to start up full scale milkfish farming” says Dr Mmochi.

Up to 0.5 kg milkfish were harvested at Changwahela in December, 2006.

This is a dream comes true not only to Mr Mushi but to all participants in the project. From 1996 WIOMSA and the Institute of Marine Sciences at University of Dar Es Salaam have been involved in a number of efforts to initiate milkfish mariculture in Tanzania. In 2005 together with several partners, they started a project for “Sustainable coastal communities and ecosystems (SUCCESS)”. They began to develop the first commercial milkfish farming in Tanzania with ponds in Mkuranga and Bagamoyo. Judging from the number of people from other districts who already are trying to copy the demonstration, milkfish farming is becoming more and more popular.

About SUCCESS: In 2005 WIOMSA, Coastal Resources Center, Institute of Marine Science and other partners, started a project "Sustainable coastal communities and ecosystems (SUCCESS)" with funding from USAID. This project is built on the MASMA-funded "Development of Integrated Pond Culture of Finfish, Shellfish and Seaweed in Zanzibar 2001-2003".