May 9 - Tourists are flocking to Gharbia to see a nilotic fish farm developed by Bakhit bin Suqan Al Mansouri.  The ‘nilotic’ fish farm, which has freshwater fish like Tilapia and Catfish, made headlines after major websites like Google Earth featured it. Al Mansouri is the first UAE citizen to establish a farm for Nilotic fishes in Liwa.  He said the idea occurred to him one day in 1995 as he was going about his daily routine of taking care of his farm in Liwa.  He noticed the large quantities of water used for irrigation every day and wanted to make better use of the water. “I knew that Egyptian farmers utilized water in rice irrigation to raise fish.  I then decided to use water in basins of my farm to raise fish” he explained.  His goal was to make optimum use of the water in his fish farm to raise fish for commercial purposes.

Al Mansouri was surprised to see the small shoal of fish he started with propogated in a amazing way and then decided to start a large investment venture.  His venture received a huge boost after Google Earth featured information about his fish farm on its website, attracting many tourists. Some told him they had come a long way to see how fish could be raised in the desert.  He has been so encouraged by his success he is now considering setting up large fisheries in the heart of the desert to produce large sized fish.