TIMELY! Why Uganda Should Conduct Aquaculture Census 2025

By Evans Najuna

KAMPALA –By definition , Aquaculture is the practice of cultivating aquatic organisms, such as fish, shellfish, and plants, in controlled environments like ponds, tanks, or ocean enclosures. It involves breeding, raising, and harvesting these organisms for food, recreation, or conservation. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), aquaculture also known as aquafarming refers to the farming of aquatic organisms, including fish, molluscs, crustaceans, and aquatic plants. In other words, it is the rearing of aquatic organisms under controlled or semi-controlled conditions (FAO, 2000).

In Uganda, fishing contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 1.9% and 7.6% to agricultural GDP for the year 2023/24 (UBOS, 2024). Aquaculture is one of the world’s fastest growing food-producing sectors, driven mainly by the need to meet the rising demand for fish amid declining fish stocks and stagnant production from capture fisheries (Egessa & Sandor, 2022).

According to the FAO’s “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (SOFIA) report, aquaculture surpassed capture fisheries as the main producer of aquatic animals (SOFIA, 2020). In 2022, global aquaculture production reached an unprecedented 130.9 million tonnes, of which 94.4 million tonnes were aquatic animals, representing 51% of the total aquatic animal production (FAO, 2022).

In February 2023, President Museveni assented to the Fisheries and Aquaculture Act of 2022, aimed at reforming the management of fisheries, fishery products, and aquaculture in Uganda. Over the past 15 years, the fisheries sector has played a significant role in Uganda’s economy, once serving as the second-largest foreign exchange earner while also providing a source of livelihood for communities living near riverbanks, landing sites, and islands across Uganda’s lakes.

Aquaculture in East Africa has shown remarkable growth, largely driven by rising demand for fish and fish products, urbanization, and the depletion of wild fish stocks. Countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda have invested in aquaculture to enhance food security, generate employment, and foster economic growth. Regional initiatives and partnerships, such as the East African Community vision 2050 and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, have emphasized the importance of developing sustainable aquaculture practices to meet these goals (EAC, 2020).

Uganda, as a landlocked country with abundant freshwater resources, has significant potential to harness aquaculture for food security, employment, and economic growth. However, despite its importance, comprehensive and reliable data on Uganda’s aquaculture sector is lacking in the areas of land under aquaculture, number of households engaged in aquaculture farming, source of water and other inputs for aquaculture etc.

The absence of detailed, up-to-date information on aquaculture activities, production volumes, and socio-economic impacts hampers accurate measurement of the sector’s contribution to the economy and limits effective policy formulation, planning, and investment.

The aquaculture census 2025 will address these critical data gaps by providing a comprehensive baseline for future inter-censual surveys. This will allow for better understanding and development of the sector, ensuring sustainable growth and maximizing aquaculture’s contributions to national development.

Problems faced by the industry

Over the past few years, aquaculture has emerged as a dynamic sector contributing to the national economy and providing livelihoods to many rural communities. However, Uganda’s aquaculture sector lacks comprehensive and reliable data, despite its significant potential of contributing to food security, employment, and economic growth.

The absence of detailed information on aquaculture activities, production methods and production volumes limits the government’s ability to make informed decisions and effective policies to grow the sector. This data gap obstructs the planning and management of the sector, hampers investment, and prevents the development of technologies necessary for sustainable production in the aquaculture sub-sector.

Currently, there is no centralized structural information in the sector that informs policy on various aspects of aquaculture, including the types of species being farmed, the scale of operations, resource utilization, and the geographical distribution of farms. This lack of information makes it challenging to assess the sector’s performance, address issues related to resource competition and measure its contribution to national development goals. The absence of accurate and up-to-date data undermines efforts to align with development initiatives at National and Global level (NDPs and SDGs). These among others, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) collected data under the Global Strategy will improve Aquaculture and Rural Statistics framework.