Aquaculture practice is emerging as a solution to food security and sustainable livelihoods in coastal Kenya. In Mtagawanda village, Pate Island, Lamu County, the community is now embracing aquaculture as a new source of hope and opportunity. This shift marks a turning point in addressing overfishing, improving household incomes, and building resilience against climate change. KMFRI team, in conjunction with the Northern Rangelands Trust team, launched a mud crab farm in the area to build capacity in mariculture practice and provide technical support towards adopting mud crab restorative aquaculture.

The 12-day activity allowed the community to benefit from a three-day in-class training session designed to improve farmers' skills through hands-on experience in profitable and sustainable mud crab farming. Dr. Mirera used this opportunity to educate communities through different modules of mud crab farming, including: the biology of the mud crab, site selection for farming, construction of culture systems, seed collection, cage stocking, monitoring, and value addition.

Mud crab farming along the coast has gained momentum following community sensitization efforts beyond fishing. For many years, coastal communities have depended on fishing, creating significant pressure on marine resources and leading to a sharp decline in fish species.

The participants constructed a pen and deployed eight cages that will be instrumental in the culture and fattening of mud crabs, housing 1000 crabs for the pen and 160 for the cages. This mud crab fattening initiative will improve the livelihoods of the coastal communities through the creation of employment, provide an accessible and sustainable small-scale aquatic food system, which will, in turn, boost food security and nutrition among the communities and the country.

Dr. Mirera, while overseeing the construction, encouraged the team to closely follow the practicals and apply what they learned in class to real-world situations. He led a community-driven session, allowing them to select sites before recommending the most suitable one.

He said this will play a major role in replicating more pens and sites to boost crab farming without relying solely on donor funding. This will help develop a new generation of innovative communities that will enhance food security, especially by promoting and advocating for aquatic food systems consumption, with technical advice and support from professionals.

For sustainability, there was a need for the community to be trained on business operations to equip them with the necessary expertise to handle and manage their finances and day-to-day business operations. The team took them through the development of a business plan that will serve as a roadmap for managing the project.

The community was also taken through an informative session on what a business plan is and what it entails, and why there is a need to educate them on the same. Emmanuel Gafo, a scientist at NRT, led the session, which he used an engaging approach by invoking leading questions that the members responded to and thus developed a business plan together. This, he emphasized, will be key in identifying gaps in the services they will render and also keep tabs on their expenditure and profits.

“You have to have specific goals that you wish to achieve shortly and with clear, distinctive timelines, without having clear indicators on what you want to achieve in a specific period, then you won’t make your anticipations in maximizing your profits come true, “he noted

Gafo asked the trainees to be objective and tailor their objectives to the size of their tasks, setting goals that are achievable within specific periods. Members retreated to groups to deliberate on diverse ideas before coming up with one plan after consultations within themselves. This, he said, will give the community the autonomy of making decisions without depending on a third party who would influence their decisions and own the project.