Rural fish farming is being promoted as a good source of protein and income diversification to fight poverty and inequality. However, its actual contribution to these rural households and local community at large is little known. Through interviews with 89 farmers’ and 6 key informants, we examined the contribution of rural fish farming to local farmers’ household income and investigate farmers’ perceptions, opportunities, and constraints towards fish farming in six districts of Tanzania. Results indicated that fish farming contributed on average 13% to household incomes and that it explained 5% of the variation of the household income while 84% of the variation was due to non-fish sources. The majority (79%) of the farmers wanted to continue with fish farming, 9% planned to quit, and 12% had not decided whether to continue or not. Conclusively, much higher aquaculture contribution towards rural development could be obtained if appropriate measures are taken.

An investigative field survey was performed to gather baseline data on locally available feed ingredients and fish farming practices in different regions of Tanzania. More than 80% of respondents relied on locally available feed ingredients as a major feed supplement for their cultured fish, with maize bran being the most commonly used feed ingredient in all regions. Crude protein content in most analyzed local feed ingredients was medium-high, while crude fat content was high in some animal and agricultural by-products, and medium-low in other ingredients. Most respondents were males and the majority of fish farms were owned by individuals. Earthen pond was the most common fish farming system in all regions except Dar es Salaam. Semi-intensively mixed-sex tilapia monoculture was the dominating fish farming practice. The results of the survey presented provide a good platform for future development of culture systems and feeding strategies for tilapia in Tanzania.

Organic wastes can be recycled in an ecologically sound way in fishponds by applying integrated agriculture and aquaculture systems (IAA). This kind of waste recycling can help to protect the environment from pollution and improve fishpond yields. Additionally, IAA provides an opportunity for diversification of the output from two or more existing subsystems leading to higher overall farm economic returns. This study explored the potential application of amaranth wastes (AW) as a dietary ingredient for tilapia in a tilapia-amaranths integrated system (ITA). An experimental diet (AD) contained 10% (based on the control diet, CD) inclusion of AW collected from a nearby vegetable market. The experiments included triplicate treatments with; (i) fish fed on AD, where the pond water was used for irrigating the amaranth plants (IAA-fish), and (ii) fish fed on CD, where no pond water was used for irrigating the amaranth plants (non-IAA fish). 90 days after fish stocking, eighteen 4 m² amaranth plots were prepared and treated with (i) tap water without fertilization (control amaranths), (ii) water from IAA-fish pond and organically fertilized (IAA amaranths), and (iii) tap water and inorganically fertilized (non-IAA amaranths). The use of AW improved the fish feed conversion ratio. The overall net income from ITA was 3.2, 2.3, 2.6, and 1.8 higher than from non-IAA amaranths, IAA-amaranths, non-IAA fish, and IAA fish sub-systems respectively.