Rhoda Mwende is a catfish farmer from Kanyonga village in Mbeere South Sub-County. She has mastered the complex art of breeding and hatching the young fish.
The single mother of three, who just five years ago depended on food aid, sold 40,000 catfish fingerlings to local farmers after the September rains, earning her KES 400,000.
Rhoda has mastered the entire catfish breeding process - from injecting the female fish with hormones to stimulate egg production, to squeezing eggs out of the fish and removing semen manually from male fish to fertilize the eggs. Here she is pictured preparing the sailing for the 'operation'. She says the males regrow their entire reproductive system with 6 months.