For many engineers, fish farming is the last place to imagine getting a job. Yet that’s exactly where Elizabeth Gakinya, a telecommunications engineer, started off. From her electrical and electronic engineering studies, she has, unsurprisingly, turned into an expert in aquaculture – not only designing technical solutions but also opening the eyes of young people to the huge opportunities available in the growing aquaculture food chain.
“I started off with only a smartphone in my bedsitter as a student,” she says. Keen to tap into the acqua-culture ecosystem, Elizabeth turned herself into a “middleman” between hotels and seafood producers at the coast in the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria in Kisumu. She would get hotel orders for seafood in Nairobi and then reach out to suppliers.
For some time, it worked well for her, though that wasn’t her really passion. While playing broker picked and started paying off, she became more ambitious, imagining how she could apply her engineering skills to create a more sustainable business niche.
That’s how she decided to design a digital marketplace for acqua-products. Soon she established her fish pond and a high-tech solution that morphed into something even bigger, ending up with a prototype acqua-culture management system that has become her main obsession.
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“The prototype worked well,” Elizabeth says, speaking on the Youth Webinar Series Powered by Co-operative Bank. The prototype automates the management of fish farming operations from brood stock, through to hatchery and fingerlings as well as growing fish and marketing.
That’s how Elizabeth managed to commercialise her idea. The system provides a number of solutions including measuring water levels, PH, oxygen concentration, temperature and salinity, among others. Water being a key production factor in fish farming is a big deal. Any mistake with the water and the pond turns toxic, leading to stress for fish or even killing them.
The sensors on the system send periodic notifications – after about every 15 minutes – on any extreme changes in the water parameters so the farmer is able to act in good time. “Even with the sensor a good farmer still has to observe fish behaviour in feeding and general stay in the water,” says Elizabeth.
Fish farming is catching on in Kenya, with the sector ranked among the fastest growing businesses in Kenya. According to research, Kenya faces an annual deficit of 450kg of fish, as health consciousness pushes up demand. Last week’s topic was Smart Fish Farming for Young People.
Through this insightful trainings, Co-operative Bank hopes to attract more youth into fish farming, with various financial solutions targeted to back up the businesses. It is an low-entry kind of business that requires very low capital or just a smart phone like the case for Elizabeth.
Opportunities in the value chain
Opportunities abound across the value chain including, marketing, technology, research, advisory/consultancy, transport, preservation and influencer roles. “Once you have the niche you want, then you can seek advice from experts or from online research,” says Elizabeth. “If on the production side, you can get advice on type of pond and type of fish.”
There are various options including the popular caged system which uses installed dams, lakes or reservoirs. This kind supports high production but requires permits, good security and technical expertise. There are also conventional ponds, marine as well as RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture System), which is an indoor or land-based method that continuously filters, cleans, and reuses up to 99% of production water.
You can keep fish even in a tank as long as you balance the volume of water and the fish you have kept. The most common fish species kept for commercial purposes on Kenya include catfish, tilapia and lobster. Once set up it’s a matter of balancing the factors of production to make a profit. “If you keep you books well, banks can finance your expansion,” Elizabeth says.
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