Bayo Herbert is a Ugandan aged 27 years old. I grew up on a fishing village of Nakiwogo near Lake Victoria in Entebbe, wakiso district.
Uganda is a landlocked country endowed with plentiful of fresh water resource. Of the total 241,000km2 area of the country, about 44,000km2 0r 18% is covered by water, including major minor lakes, rivers, swamps, dams, valley tanks and fish ponds.
The problem is that over the last 15 years or so, there has always been over fishing which led to the substantial decline of fish in the water. My community being a fishing village, people lost their jobs including my father who was a fisherman and the sole bread winner in my family.
Other people resorted to illegal fishing methods like fish poisoning to get the little fish left in the water further destroying the environment and feeding the community on contaminated fish.
With all this going on, the government was prompted to ban all fishermen from fishing on Lake Victoria. With the marine crackdown as the only solution to the problem, my community was left with no alternative but starvation and poverty.
By 2018 I had finished school but jobs were hard to come by, I quit searching for jobs and dedicated myself to recreating the fishing the fishing industry. With determination and passion to increase access of fish to my community, create jobs, crested fish limited was launched and we innovated bamboo cages to provide fish through environmentally acceptable mechanisms.
So far we supply women in our community with our fish boasting their income and savings thus improving on livelihoods. Maize, feeds suppliers and transporters are beneficiaries hence an impact on the economy. Banks are also beneficiaries with attendant tax going to the government.
Today the demand of fish in Uganda is 500million tons per year and our goal is to supply 100 tons of fish in the next 4 years which is fish 4% of the market demand.
I not only want to train youths on how to farm fish but I want to inspire them to shift their views and assumptions on fish farming and agriculture as a whole. Most of the youth today have gone through formal education and agriculture presents a great opportunity for the youth only if they can capitalize on it.
If they can see my success in fish farming, it will help them understand that there are many ways to full fill life besides having an office and working indoors.