A FOUR day training on tilapia was successfully conducted last week in Malaita province.
A total of six rural training centres (RTC) school principals, agriculture instructors and 22 leading tilapia farmers in the province have attended the training.
It was held in Auki, Malaita.
The training was possible under a four years partnership agreement by the Solomon Islands Association of Vocational Rural Training Centres (SIAVRTC) with New Zealand Wintec institute of Technology through the support of the New Zealand government.
SIAVRTC director Billy Mae said the New Zealand government had offered to support the concept of tilapia farming to be introduced in three rural training centres in the province.
“We are grateful that students attending these RTCs will benefit from the concept and get into tilapia farming as another variable opportunity to sustain community livelihood.”
Mr Mae explained that under the partnership 22 leading tilapia fish farmers in Malaita are also part of the support.
“This is for them to access information from the program and work closely with our ground technical officers from time to time improve their existing farms under the four years partnership support.”
He added the other part of the development is, the three training centres and farmers will benefit from information sharing.
“This will be made possible through an apps developed with the provision of new smart phones that the centres and the farmers will access to under the program.
“Information will be provided through the apps where information can be accessed at no cost of printing of materials.
“This means the centres and the farmers can able to access and share information with each other relating to the running of their tilapia farms and also have links with New Zealand Wintec and SIAVRTC.”
Mr Mae said that this is part of the networking link to keep everybody together under the program that can be seen as very beneficial both for the training centres and the lead farmers.
The director said the four days training program has been very successful and has ended with a one day field day trip to look at some of the tilapia farms in the communities around Auki and also a new tilapia fish pond at Asia Pacific Sustainable Development (APSD) training centre that has been recently constructed.
The next training under the partnership will be in December.
Mr Mae thanked New Zealand Wintec Institute of Technology for facilitating the training.
At the closing of the training new smart phones were presented to the training centres and the tilapia farmers.
The farmers came from the southern, central and northern region of Malaita.
They were identified following assessments conducted by the program at the end of last year.
By LESLEY SANGA