Up until now, the fish food required for rearing the fish, from the starter food for the finger cots to the food for larger fish, has been imported from other European countries. Due to the high inflation in Ghana in combination with sharply increased prices for transport, especially during Corona, the price of the fish food has increased many times over. Ultimately, the fish food costs ate up the profit from fish farming, so that the production could no longer cover the costs.

While touring a fish farm in the south, Oxford and Fred learned from a fish farming specialist that you could make your own fish food with the right ingredients and using a slightly modified commercial fufu machine.

But what is a fufu machine ?

The people of northwestern Ghana, near the border with Burkina Faso – one of the poorest countries in the world – lack almost everything.

Only a few villages here are connected to the shaky power grid. But much more dramatic is the lack of clean drinking water.

The water supply from the adjacent rivers has become more and more of a challenge in recent years, as the dry seasons are getting longer and there is no rainfall.

At the same time, clean water is essential to life. Many Ghanaians get the water they need from muddy streams or ponds.

The consequences are sometimes devastating diseases caused by the polluted water. Children in particular are often affected - they contract cholera, which often leads to death. In addition to this, typhus and bilharziasis are occurring frequently.

In the past week it finally happened:

After several months of preparation, which were necessary for financing and planning the project, the truck with the drill rods arrived in Lyssah in north-western Ghana and, after exploring the area, began drilling the well.

To the delight of the residents, the men tapped sufficient fresh and clean water at a depth that can still be reached with a hand pump.

They needed 8 days from the order to the completion of the 85m deep well.

Construction of a fish basin and garden system (with vertical drip irrigation) to enable fishery and the irrigation of fields- funded by the federal state Baden-Württemberg via the foundation "Entwicklungs-Zusammenarbeit Baden-Württemberg (SEZ)"

Goal of this project is to provide women and their families with the means to improve their income situation. This goal is to be reached by laying the foundations through the building of the fish basin and garden system and by  teaching the women about fishery and the use of resulting natural fertilizer for gardening