Semi-Intensive Tilapia Aquaculture in Earth Ponds

Uganda

Uganda: Semi-Intensive Tilapia Aquaculture in Earth Ponds S.O.N Fishfarm was established in 2005.

S.O.N. is a greenfield commercial fish farming venture located at Jinja – eastern Uganda and

promoted by Mr. Patrick Blow (British) and Mr. Phillip Borel (Belgian). S.O.N. is pioneering large scale

commercial fish farming in Uganda by taking advantage of increasing demand for fish world-wide and the

country’s ideal fish farming conditions. S.O.N. was launched in 2005 with an initial investment of US$

0.5million. Promoted by two shareholders, Lake Harvest Group represented by Mr. Patrick Blow, and

Greenfields Uganda Ltd (GUL), represented by Mr. Philip Borel respectively, S.O.N. is currently a pilot

scale fish farm expected to be mainstreamed after successful implementation into a 2,500 tonnes per annum world class farm. SON’s fish ponds are constructed to the highest standards and the project is currently producing about 500,000 tilapia fry per month, and selling many of these to other commercial fish farmers in the country.

Employee numbers have increased from 1 in 2005 to 20 in 2007 including 7 Diploma holders, 3 graduates, and 2 expatriates, one from Zimbabwe who had ten years’ prior work experience with Lake Harvest Fish Farm. The company is also pioneering the establishment of a large scale tilapia fish hatchery in addition to rearing selectively bred tilapia for its own use and for sale to third party fish farmers.

Uganda was selected as an investment location based on the presence of large unpolluted fresh water bodies including Lake Victoria and over 160 other lakes with abundant stocks of Nile Tilapia, optimum temperatures for aquaculture.

The fish sector also fully complies with the EU and USA Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedures and veterinary controls. This has made it easy to launch fish

farming operations since strong regional markets exist Having ironed out many of the technical issues of farming tilapia in Uganda, SON is now looking to expand from a pilot scale into a 2,500t per annum large scale commercial enterprise. https://www.lakeharvest.com/fish-farms/

SON Fishfarm 2022:

Lake Victoria, Uganda

Source of the Nile, Jinja (SON)

Located at the Source of the Nile close to Jinja, Uganda on Lake Victoria, the business has a hatchery operation producing fingerlings for own use. Lake Harvest may assist small farmers to sell their fish.

SON harvested 1000 tons in 2017 and projections for 2018 are pegged at 1,200 t/pa of fresh whole round for sale into Kenya, Uganda, DRC and Rwanda. SON employs 103 people.