Assessment of the Status of Pond Aquaculture Development in Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia: The Case of Kersa and Seka-Chokorsa Districts

Abstract

Fisheries and aquaculture are crucial in the fight against hunger and poverty. Pond aquaculture has the potential to contribute to food security. In Ethiopia aquaculture is a potential alternative source of animal protein and food security. The activities of pond aquaculture development in Jimma zone including the present study areas is not scientifically assessed and documented. Therefore, this study was designed to assess the status of pond aquaculture development in Kersa and Seka-Chokorsa districts of Jimma zone. Data was collected from ten Kebeles of the two purposively selected aquaculture potential districts. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. The findings revealed the presence of a total of 124 fish ponds in the two districts, which were predominantly earthen ponds (99.2%). Of these 74.2% were functional and 25.8% were non-functional. All the fish ponds are rectangular in shape with a size of range 80m2 to 200m2 and most of the fishponds sizes were 150m2 with mean depth of 0.92m. The water sources for the ponds include stream (92.7%), and ground water (7.3%). The dominant fish species are Nile Tilapia in monoculture system (97.6%) and tilapia-catfish polyculture system (2.4%).The fingerlings for stocking the ponds were obtained from Sebata and Batu research centers assisted by livestock and fishery sector development program organization in technical and budget support (91.1%) and neighbor fishponds (8.9%). The stocking rate is high and stunting fish growth is low. The most common fish feeds used by all farmers included chicken manure, cow manure and other food roughage like injera and the feeding frequency is occasional. Most of the fish ponds are not clean; there are ponds that are full of grass, frog, submerged plants and foreign materials due to poor management. The mean values of the physicochemical characteristics water of the ponds were of 22.09±1.15C0 (Water Temperature), 5.23±1.15 mg/l (DO), 7.08±0.33 (pH), 89.96.16±26.77 µs/cm (EC) and 59.10±17.49 mg/l (TDS). The study also found that many respondents had not harvested any fish due to stunting fish growth, and some had sold fingerlings. About 30.6% of the aquaculture owners earned an average income of 1158.28 ETB per pond/year from fish sold and the average revenues gained from selling fingerlings were 712.50 ETB in all years. Series problems observed in study areas were overstocking, lack of fish gears, lack of fish feed and stunting fish growth. The study highlighted the major opportunities including suitability of environmental conditions such as availability of year-round water supply, suitability of soil for pond construction, natural resource availability, and availability of Jimma University for technology and knowledge transfer.