Hello fellow environments and ambassadors,

Back here Bream is one of Zambia’s most sought-after fish, and is served in top restaurants and hotels. So a bream fish-farm is likely to be a money-spinner.

That’s exactly what Lubambe Copper Mine has done in a small village outside the town of Chililabombwe, on the Copperbelt. Partnering with a local farming cooperative in Kasapa village, the mine has built a fish-farm in the nearby Kebumba stream. It is stocked with 3 000 bream, representing a market value in excess of K60 000.

The market value of the fish is approximately K60 000

The market value is easy to calculate, as a decent-size bream (the size of one’s palm) fetches anything from K25 to K30 on the open market, and sells for double that in shops and supermarkets.

“It’s a good source of revenue for the farmers, and far exceeds what they’d get by selling maize,” says Joel Bwalya, Lubambe’s CSR Manager.

The fish-farm is a partnership of funding and engineering on the part of the mine, and farming expertise on the part of the farmers.

Lubambe constructed the fish-farm, and seeded it with 3 000 small bream known as fingerlings, because they are barely the size of one’s finger. The fish take about nine months to grow, and subsist on a diet of chicken manure (which the farmers provide from their own chickens) and maize bran, which Lubambe provides. There is no other work involved, so the farmers are free to continue their farming activities while their investment grows – both literally and figuratively.

As an environmentalist i ought to start start fish farming,i will try to aquare some land from the government and I know they will assist me, I will be paying a courtesy call to the honourable ministers in charge of Agriculture,youth and land in the second week of October 2020,next month.

Thank you for reading.

Sources: The 25 Eco Generation  Ambassador to Zambia Amb Chabala Ken Chisenga and mining for Zambia.com