The current state of the aquaculture sub sector in Zambia is largely a product of the fish culture projects implemented, strategies of the Department of Fisheries for Fisheries development; and availability of extension services. Commercial aquaculture is not yet fully established even though efforts of cage culture are underway mainly on lake Kariba and this could be a result of combination of factors that include policy objectives for the fisheries sector as implemented in previous national development plans; availability of capital; and information or technical knowledge about fish farming.

There are currently 6,460 small-scale farmers with 13,910 fish ponds with total water surface area of about 342 hectares (DoF, 2004). These small-scale fish farmers are concentrated in Eastern, Northern, Copperbelt and North-western provinces which constitute 80% of the total and using mainly earthened ponds for fish production.

The largest percentage of aquaculture production comes from small-scale fish farmers. This is mainly because there are many small scale fish farmers compared to other categories. In addition small-scale fish farmers have the largest combined area of fishponds. In comparison to small-scale fish farmers, there are very few commercial or large-scale fish farmers’. This situation strongly suggests that one of the ways for effectively increasing aquaculture production is to improve fishpond productivity among small-scale fish farmers and commercialization of aquaculture production systems.