04 June 2009
A very Guyanese business
Tilapia is a tasty, fast-growing fish that does very well in Guyana’s tropical climate. And, if you can deal with the start-up costs, farming tilapia can be a lucrative business.
And it’s a particularly attractive idea if you live in Guyana’s Trafalgar region, a particularly poor coastal area of the country. Here, there are no social safety nets, employment is scarce and conventional agriculture is difficult because of regular flooding.
That's why a local women’s group – the Trafalgar/Union Community Development Committee (TUCDC) – decided they wanted to build their own tilapia business, any way they could. And also why DFID has stepped in to help.
The lack of other options made this a simple business decision for the single-minded women of TUCDC, which is a collective focused on generating income, building livelihoods and reducing poverty. Secretary and spokeswoman Lloyda Angus said:
"The lack of employment in this area is really hard. In other areas, such as sugar-growing areas, the women can get involved in the process. But there’s nothing here. Men from here will go into the interior for mining and suchlike, but you wouldn’t find the ladies going there…"
Finding funding
The TUCDC’s 240 members knew they needed funding to meet the considerable start-up costs for their tilapia farm. Economic conditions were too bleak to find investors. But the collective were determined and creative enough to find another strategy to realise their ambition.
They simply decided to try a venture for which there was funding, and planned on quickly putting the profits from that into building the tilapia farm. They successfully applied to the European Commission’s micro-finance programme for short-term projects, to set up a chicken-rearing business - pictured left is the ladies' storyboard briefly explaining how the chicken pens were created.
This wasn’t as profitable as tilapia farming, but it got results quickly. The women raised over a quarter of the project cost to qualify for the grant by fundraising and selling shares in the business. They came up with G$1.8m (approx £4,500), and the European Commission (DFID is its biggest donor) gave them a grant of G$5.8m (approx £14,500) in September 2008.
The women acquired 25 acres of land, with the support of the Government, and quickly built flood-proofed chicken pens. With a strategic eye fixed firmly on their vision of tilapia farming, the women excavated six large ponds for their future fish, and used the excavated earth to raise the ground for the chicken pens.
Six months later, the business was successful enough to enable them to turn their attentions firmly back to tilapia.
How DFID is helping
As of May 2009, the women already have more than 3,000 local tilapia in their ponds, they’ve found an exporter and get support from the National Aqua-Culture Association of Guyana (NAAG). These tilapia are relatively low-yielding, but once the fish are at the right weight, they’ll be ready to be sold.
The business is ready to go to the next stage, where new technology is being harnessed to give a further boost to the women’s new business.
And that’s where DFID come in – twice.
First, as the result of a £60,000 DFID grant earlier in 2009, the collective is about to receive their first batch of ‘supermale’ tilapia - normal tilapia which have been altered to produce faster-growing, all-male offspring - from NAAG. The women will get some of these new fish from the nearby hatchery where they are being grown.
The supermales are expected to produce about 82 million fingerlings (juvenile fish) over the next five years, which potentially could generate up to US$70m for the industry, and more than 1,000 new jobs in the fisheries and surrounding industries.
Second, the supermales come from the University of Wales (Swansea) where DFID’s Fish Genetic Programme funded the original research that led to their development. More about supermales
Next steps?
TUCDC will sell some of their fish on the local market, but they will also export to Jamaica. There’s a big market for tilapia across the Caribbean and the US, so the potential for growth is huge if the women can produce tilapia of a sufficient size and quality.
The collective is determined to get the business up and running at full-strength, and as of May 2009 is reinvesting almost all of its profits.
It isn't able yet to pay its 14 employees much (about £15 a month), but it goes a long way to providing some of the bare essentials for these women.
They have hope for the future: that the number of employees will quickly double, that wages will rise, and that they can continue to provide income for their share-holders.
Harry Hagan, Head of DFID Caribbean’s Growth Team, said:
"This is a great example of innovation from DFID funded research being matched with entrepreneurial spirit to create jobs and increase incomes.
"Trade is essential for the small nations of the Caribbean. And this example from Guyana represents the kind of regional trade that will be vital in reducing poverty, as opportunities reduce from more traditional sectors such as sugar and bananas."
Key facts
- Despite being one of the Caribbean’s poorest countries, Guyana has more access to regional markets than ever. Reaping the benefits and improving life for the 36% of the population living in poverty depends on local businesses innovating and competing. DFID’s strategy is focused on helping the region to grow, supporting greater regional integration and helping the Caribbean to take advantage of the new trade agreement with the EU (Economic Partnership Agreement).
- What are supermales? Male fish grow more quickly than females, and supermales are altered male fish that have two Y sex chromosomes instead of the usual XY pair. An all-male fingerling stock is an industry evolutionary step, and results in a much faster-growing fish crop. Importantly, this reduces the feed costs necessary to rear the fish to a sufficient size for the market, and they are therefore very popular with farmers.
- The TUCDC formed in 2001, and its 240 members come from 3 neighbouring villages. Before they started working on building livelihoods, they had previously been involved in support activities such as IT training and computer access.
- DFID will spend up to £1 billion on research from 2008-13, and spent £4.7m on the fish genetics research programme between 2001 and 2006.