We would like to make our company and its products known to you briefly.

ASBIR GROUP- a group company founded by ERHAS IRRIGATION SYSTEMS, KOYLU AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY and IKON VALVES- has been exporting the products it has produced in 3 factories located in Konya City and 1 factory in Şanlıurfa City, TURKEY and exporting to more than 25 countries in 4 continents through its branches, agencies and exclusive distributors for more than 50 years.

Our products are;

Sprinkler Irrigation Pipes and Accessories

Drip Irrigation Pipes and Accessories (Tape and Round Pipes)

Plastic Filters for Agricultural Irrigation

PP Compression Fittings

Clamp Saddles

PP Butterfly Valves for Agricultural Irrigation and Filtration

Agricultural Machines for Soil Preparation (Cultivators, Rotovators)

Seeding Machines

Harvesting Machines

Our websites are below which gives you general information about our products. If you are interested in our products, we will be happy to send you any further information.

We may be available in the near future to discuss the subject with you as well.

Thanking for your kind interest and we look forward for your early reply, we remain,

English Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG1eyL1HRHM

Russian Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfxxBOEY8To

Arabic Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaffxsjjixw

Websites:

www.asbir.com.tr

www.erhas.com

www.koylu.com

www.ikonmetal.com.tr

Yours respectfully,

Mehmet BERBER

FEVZİ ÇAKMAK MAH.BÜSAN ORGANİZE SANAYİ BÖLGESİ

10646 SOKAK NO : 5 P.K : 42250 KARATAY / KONYA

Tel : +90 (332) 236 01 22

Fax : +90 (332) 236 01 18

Mobile : +90 (554) 725 24 35

E-Mail : info@asbir.com.tr / www.asbir.com.tr

We would like to make our company and its products known to you briefly.

ASBIR GROUP- a group company founded by ERHAS IRRIGATION SYSTEMS, KOYLU AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY and IKON VALVES- has been exporting the products it has produced in 3 factories located in Konya City and 1 factory in Şanlıurfa City, TURKEY and exporting to more than 25 countries in 4 continents through its branches, agencies and exclusive distributors for more than 50 years.

Our products are;

 Sprinkler Irrigation Pipes and Accessories

 Drip Irrigation Pipes and Accessories (Tape and Round Pipes)

 Plastic Filters for Agricultural Irrigation

 PP Compression Fittings

 Clamp Saddles

 PP Butterfly Valves for Agricultural Irrigation and Filtration

 Agricultural Machines for Soil Preparation (Cultivators, Rotovators)

 Seeding Machines

 Harvesting Machines

Our websites are below which gives you general information about our products. If you are interested in our products, we will be happy to send you any further information.

We may be available in the near future to discuss the subject with you as well.

Thanking for your kind interest and we look forward for your early reply, we remain,

English Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG1eyL1HRHM

Russian Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfxxBOEY8To

Arabic Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaffxsjjixw

Websites:

www.asbir.com.tr

www.erhas.com

www.koylu.com

www.ikonmetal.com.tr

Yours respectfully,

Mehmet BERBER

FEVZİ ÇAKMAK MAH.BÜSAN ORGANİZE SANAYİ BÖLGESİ

10646 SOKAK NO : 5 P.K : 42250 KARATAY / KONYA

Tel : +90 (332) 236 01 22

Fax : +90 (332) 236 01 18

Mobile : +90 (554) 725 24 35

E-Mail : info@asbir.com.tr / www.asbir.com.tr

HI TAKNET MEMBER

I LIKE TO BE UPDATED ABOUT THE DISCUSSION

KINDLY

SENORINA..

Mónica E. Stender, Ph D, MBA

STENDER ASESORES, S.L.U.

Av. Madrid, 102 Entº 3ª

08028 - Barcelona - España

Tel: (34) 610 792450 Fax: (34) 93 229 6934

mstender@stender.biz www.stender.biz

Skype: monicastender

Linkedin: stender@stender.biz

we real need to promote fish farming by promoting better community participations from the start of projects, if we think to promote community economic growth.

Researched findings if well adopted will automatically elevate yields from fish farms, create good understanding on ways of better farming practices.

Better markets,transportation from farms to other sites, loans from recognizable institutions to help communities start farming likely will promote people direction towards fish farming at large.

Government need to raise trained personnel to run such area which is one of the big area of of economical growth ensure better fisheries schools or training institutions with all basic needs, is all that is needed for advanced technologies if required and technical personnel have to work with people at needs of service.

In the past the Government had pronounced (but never issued a written guideline) that each district should identify two strategic commodities, one for cash and another for food security though recently the line between the two is becoming blurred. I have visited several districts and noted that there is no such a thing mainly due to politics that areas without the strategic crops are going to be left out something that will cost politicians during elections. So lack of focus. On the other hand there is an emerging class of private investors in agriculture so the question in the first place should be how do we support private investment in agriculture around which smallholder farmers should peg their advancement? This is a long unending debate.

Lets juxtapose there and return to fish farming. Policy wise investment by the Government to support fish farming will be a second priority as it is addressing nutrition and not necessarily food security. How much money will you spend on fish farming while the country is deficient in cereals? (We still import some 700000+Mt per annum). Would you take money from fertiliser subsidy say to promote fish farming? Even if we will get to the 10% of annual budget going to "agriculture" I doubt if fish farming will be a priority. However, turn 180degree away from Government investment and announce (as a Government) that the business of fish farming is highly profitable. See how money from different sources, domestic and foreign, legal and illegal, clean and dirty will flow in the sector.

My view has been that the role of the Government should not be to start with supporting production as it traditionally does. It should use the value chain model. Start from the market, the Government should invest in serious market assessments. the case in point - About 4 years back I called the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries asking about information on investment in fish farming. The officer asked me a very logical question - have you done a market assessment? I went dumb! She curtly said please do that before you come to us asking about investment costs. Very logical question and it is where our agriculture fails us. KILIMO KWANZA but it Pillar One should have been Market, Markets and Markets.

I posed the question in my last posting as to whether smallholder fish farmers will do the market analysis considering the influx of fish from Far East? It should be the Government that does this then disseminate information. Once positive information is available private capital will find its natural course including possibility for out grower arrangement. I will strongly discourage to put money into pico-, micro-, miniature- projects and projects that address production only at this point in time. Understand that we are closing in the 50million people mark, roads to district/regional headquarters are opening up to ease access to markets.

Having market-driven but all encompassing industry strategy necessitated by long-term market prospects should be the ultimate objective of the Government. In many instances when we refer to agriculture institutions we dwell on technology-based ones (the Agric. Research Institutions). We have TANTRADE what is exactly their contribution to the knowledge body about crop markets? I am compelled to say one office that needs to be strongly managed and supported in in the country is TANTRADE rather than ARIs for now.

Hebron Mwakalinga

Facilitating Markets for Development

I agree with you that it is important to identify the roles of different institutions in supporting fish farming. Just to add a point, I also think that it equally and perhaps even more important to discuss the way we can make institutions responsible for supporting fish farming to be more effective. One clear problem we have related to development of agriculture and other sectors relates to inefficiency of institutions in delivering their mandates.

Specifically in agricultural sector where fish farming belong, a major scapegoat has always been little levels of funding. Over the past ten years, the government budget allocation to agricultural sector has increased from around 2% to the current 7% - the target is to reach 10%. While I totally agree with rationale for more budget allocation to agriculture sector to reach the 10% target, an intriguing question is "what has been the impact of the increase from 2% to 7% over the past ten years? One thing that we know is that growth of the sector has continued to stagnate at around 3%. We have also heard voice of peasants that they don't feel the impact of budget increase.

These observations says that the problem surrounding our institutions is not just budget limitation. There must be other challenges as well such as those related to governance and accountability, financial management, wrong priority setting, other capacity challenges (e.g. human resources) etc. This is one reason which makes BIG RESULTS NOW a very interesting initiative for everybody. We are all following up to see if BRN model - with its roots from Malaysia will be the solution for our under performing institutions. Is BRN the Mwarobaini?

I submit

I think that each institute have different roles. Fishing school must ensure that its knowledge of the matter is up to date and adapted to local reality. Government must regulate the activity and determine the places where fishing farming could be installed with environment protection and create mechanism to promote the activity in the rural area improving financing, business and commerce. The fish farming is the beginning of the supply chain and, to be a success, all its link must be lubricate.

Best REgards

Mónica E. Stender, Ph D, MBA

STENDER ASESORES, S.L.U.

Av. Madrid, 102 Entº 3ª

08028 - Barcelona - España

Tel: (34) 610 792450 Fax: (34) 93 229 6934

mstender@stender.biz www.stender.biz

Skype: monicastender

Linkedin: stender@stender.biz

CDNKassala

Furthermore, while an individual person can venture into this prosperous industry, group initiatives should be encouraged. Group farming (youth, women, women, disabled) can mobilize their efforts and work towards achieving their predetermined objectives. Communities living adjacent to water resources such as rivers and lakes can easily establish and operate fish farms with minimal costs. As one of contributors pointed out, the demand for fish is unlimited. This could be a pool for absorbing youth hanging around in streets seeking for collar jobs.

Anthony Gikuri

Kizumbi Campus

Moshi University College of Cooperative and Business Studies

P.O.BOX 469

SHINYANGA

Tanzania

Mobile +255713634382/+25589448244/+255768805441

Website: www.muccobs.ac.tz

First of all instead of using layman terminologies lets use the formal term for fish farming which is called "aquaculture" (thanks to Wikipedia).

Secondly, i do agree that this is one form of poverty alleviation strategy in an area where there is sufficient and naturally occurring or freely available water resources (assuming off course that this resource has no other useful or competing use or demand).

Thirdly we have ample resource people who can train our people. I happen to have visited a government maintained Aquaculture Project at Kingolwira Morogoro and i couldn't imagine how underutilised that center was.

But fourthly where is the money to the training, awareness raising and seed capital?

Just mooting these questions for protagonists to ponder.

John

So the question is , is fish farming as currently practiced likely to lead to a significant improvement of income among the rural households in the long term?. My opinion is that it is not likely. There lacks meaningful investment in the sector. People are not well empowered to undertake the farming commercially. Elsewhere where it has been successful eg. Israel a lot of investment has been committed to the sector. Unless more resources are not put in the sub sector and the farmers empowered, it is likely to end up like other many agricultural initiatives which performed well during the donor project funding periods and deteriorated after donor funding ceases.

January R. Bikuba, GEITA DISTRICT COUNCIL. Cell: +255-(0)765-300785/(0)786681645. Email :January_bikuba@yahoo.com

As a country we have a big potential to revolutionalise this latent but potential industry. What is needed and many countries where economic development takes supremacy over politics, the Government assumes responsibilities to map the sector from International, Regional and National perspective and give the information to potential investors. The information include markets, standards, trade arrangements, pre-feasibility analyses, and does the marketing of the business concepts. It is not possible for a farmer in Uluguru Mountains to do this.

Technologically, fish rearing can be done at various scale from miniature households backyard fish tanks, ponds, community ponds, river/lake/sea shore captive rearing, etc. If we want to have impact, we need to target all scales but more important the large scale i.e. tens or hundreds of acres of fish farms. It is possible. While miniature/micro activities are appealing from subsistence angle, large scale is ultimate end, looking at competitiveness in global and regional settings. Karibu!

Hebron Mwakalinga

Facilitating Markets for Development

Urafiki Flats. Block EC. 2nd Floor. Morogoro Road..

P.O.Box 78496. Dar es Salaam.

Tel. + 255 786 171 000 or +255 752 171 000

The idea of fish farming is a fantastic concept for achieving MDG's. However, my position on this is, to encourage and implement fish farming today that will destroy the environment for tomorrow is retrogressive. We must find a sustainable solution for the next 100 yrs.

I will use and example, in Kenya fish farming was encouraged in the central highlands, especially in the regions where there were permanent rivers passing by. The Central highlands are mainly red loam volcanic soil, which means for you to farm fish, you would need to dig out the pond, line it up with plastic material so that the water does not sip away and do your farming. Due to the support extended by the government then, a lot of farmers were encouraged to grow fish. This was an excellent idea.

However, since the central highland are not the natural ecosystem for growing fish (preferable areas would have black/grey clay soil) the central highlands produced more than 40% of the food basket for the country, suddenly there was as shortage of food supplies (maize, beans, vegetables, coffee, tea, etc). secondly if a farmer felt that the fish farming was not as profitable as regular farming, it was difficult to reclaim the land and use it for farming (fish pond was dug out)

Now if the project had been encouraged in natural ecosystems (black clay soil that can hold water for fish farming, but cumbersome for agricultural farming) this would have been a win-win situation for all. The fish farming project would a perfect solution to this. The logistics would be, to get sufficient water supplies to these natural ecosystems and then let them thrive.

In rural areas, fish farming works - but the policy that encourages this should not only look at the possible financial gain with support but also consider the environmental impact in the areas projected to fish farming.

My final comment, I think in areas where fish farming is to be encouraged, tree farming or forestry should also be encouraged. this will provide a balance for the ecosystem in both the short and long-term.

The link to a publication that provide fish production chain from construction of fish cages to stocking, feeding, harvesting, marketing and profitability issues. http://www.worldfishcenter.org/resource_centre/WF_2500.pdf

I have seen this happening with my In-Law at his Bunju resince. a 5 x 6 sq.m pond with a depth of about a Meter and half. There was no river diversion as the pond is cemented and a bozer filled it with fresh water. Fish siblings have just been planted and I am told it would take 3 Months before the 1st harvest could take place.

I am interested to do the same, as you know, the market for food especially in urban centres is never limited. You can play with pricing mechanisim to beat the market, as you are aware a Kilo of Fish sells at around Tshs. 8,000/= where any thing below that could enable you a strong penetration to the market, apart from being able to provide for your family nutricious need.

I will get back with details.

Sallu E. Johnson CMILT(UK)

Dar es Salaam - Tanzania.

Cell: +255 (0) 784 368 888 / 0715 062 888

Email: sallujohnson@yahoo.com

I’ve a problem to access the page and discussions. When I inform my password the page sais:

Login Failed. Enter valid information OR you are YET to Be APPROVED - Did you ever Received Approval email Notification ?

Please, could you see what is happening?

Thank you very much

can you please give more information on how to start, requirements, problems and marketing ideas in this project.

Regards,

francis

I happened to undertake a special project (for undergraduate degree study) on fish farming in Uluguru Mountains in 2000. I did the Special Project within FAO supported project titled Aquaculture for Local Communities Development Programme (ALCOM). I can recall two things:-

i. On the positive side I was inspired by substantial spillover i.e. adoption of extension technologies by farmers in other villages which were not the primary target. These were not trained or given any support but they copied the technology from other beneficiary villages and started fish farming in their areas.

ii. On the other hand, I do recall a lot of diversion of river waters which I was not happy with for concerns related with destruction of the environment.

Unfortunately I never had an opportunity to go back later to Mgeta, Matombo etc to see how the project continued especially after phasing out of FAO support.

Sango

But this is not only relevant to rural areas, in urbans we witness idle ponds which could be utilized fully in fish farming and ducks keeping.

neemak e.k (0784 305 005)

This is a promising economic undertaking not only for the rural people but mostly of the peripheral dwellers of most of our national urban centres where there is a lot of underemployment.

a 4 x 5 sq meter could generate a sustainable income sufficient to run a household on all its expenditures i.e. schooling, medical, living expenses and in the extreme provide surplus money to cater for the least of nutritious food.

I have much hope for this type of economic undertakings at household level that can gear the nation towards realizing the Millennium (DG) objectives.

Sallu E. Johnson CMILT(UK)

Dar es Salaam - Tanzania.

Cell: +255 (0) 784 368 888 / 0715 062 888

Email: sallujohnson@yahoo.com

Findings from the interviews with farmers (through their groups) in Lake Zone show that this is the promising economic venture and therefore strategic interventions geared towards promoting fish farming are inevitable if the rural livelihoods are to be improved. The demand and willingness to participate in fish farming is apparently high showing how people are hopeful that such interventions will change their lives.

However, implementation of fish farming projects in the communities of Lake Zone for example has led to threats and stress of the ecosystems. Most of the participating farmers and especially the new ones do not observe environmental rules and values. For example some fish ponds are constructed close to the water sources and in the wetlands thus disrupting the hydrological regime in these areas and therefore threatening sustainability of such environmental resources. most of the existing fish ponds are poorly constructed. .

Given the potential of fish farming in attaining the MDG 1 (eradication of extreme poverty), and the zeal from rural people to participate into this economic venture, one could say that this is another avenue which needs to be explored further.

This brief is intended to solicit for your views on the way we can make this sub-sector more beneficial to the rural people and Tanzanians in general. Please give your opinion on the following thematic areas:

1. Do you think fish farming can help improve the life of farmers in the rural areas? How?

2. What can we learn from the experience of other countries such as those of Asia on fish farming? (In terms of technology, jobs creation, etc)

3. What is your opinion regarding the impact of fish farming on the ecosystem?

4. What should the relevant institutions, such as Fisheries Training Schools, Ministries, LGAs etc do to revolutionalize fish farming in Tanzania for better livelihoods of the rural population?

This discussion is moderated by: Dr. O. Mshindano, Mrs. M. Nzuki, Mr. A. Mbilinyi and Mr. A. Hassan