text: Intermediate 
  Ever since he was diagnosed HIV positive, Moses King, 48, has had one major problem. He has been able to cope with the stigma of being HIV positive  widespread in Liberia  and he was able to access antiretroviral medication, distributed by the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children could not get the right food to eat. A subsistence farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. But he could not afford meat and fish  expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein.
  Pate K Chon, a counsellor who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, provided a surprising solution. Since watching a documentary about a fish farm in Thailand several years earlier, she had thought of setting up a similar project in Liberia, allowing HIV sufferers to have work and also access a stable source of protein.
  I saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea, said Chon, herself diagnosed with HIV in 1992. So many of the people I work with dont have the money to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein  it doesnt cause health problems like other sources, and it is something we can farm.
  Chon began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, Chon met John Sheehy, a philanthropist. Sheehy raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberias capital, and set about learning about fish farming, doing an online course through Cornell University and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa.
  I raised the money and built the farm, learned the proper tank layout and water flow system, said Sheehy. A lot of my knowledge was self-taught, and now I would love to be able to write a manual and share it with other people, he added.
  The project has now grown into the Grow2Feed Liberia Fish Farm, with 12 tanks, which, when full, will each have 5,000 fish  providing up to 200,000 fish per year, serving a community of 1,200 mainly HIV-positive people, including King and his family.
  In addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to irrigate crops, also providing food and money for the community.
  The members of the community live near the farm, and have agreed to be part of the co-operative, said Sheehy. Many work on the farm and what they get in return is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other essential items. The fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society  now they are trading with people in the market every week.
  According to Liberias health survey,1.5% of Liberias 3.5 million people are HIV positive, with 60% of those women or girls. Stigma and discrimination still surround the illness, and around half of all people with HIV in the country are untreated.
  Good nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. Research has shown they need much higher levels of protein to stop their health deteriorating and to allow healthy growth. Nutrition is one of the key things if you are taking antiretroviral drugs, said Chon. The drugs are toxic and, if you dont have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive imported rice, even though we should be growing it ourselves and fish is difficult for most people to afford.
  Fish farming is absolutely possible in Africa, said Paul White, owner of the HydroFish fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. A lot of the fish on the market comes from China and is imported frozen. It is of a quality that could never enter Europe or America. He said there had been a lack of investment in fish production but that things were changing now.
  Some critics are sceptical of farmed fish, saying fish can be inbred and have high levels of toxins. But Sheehy said good practice can reduce these problems. A lot of farmed fish is inbred, which does cause problems, but we are using a process with local fish from Liberia, not fish from another region, said Sheehy. And we are not using lakes that are cornered off, where the fish absorb all the toxins in the lake. We can control the environment using the tanks and we test the water and monitor it constantly.
  Sheehy hopes to open more fish farms throughout Liberia and the region. A rice-growing co-op in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America, said Sheehy. But we operate 100% non-profit and we always will.