Tag Africa

A Singapore-based company aims to make Lesotho, a nation of 2 million people, known for a local fish that’s truly anything but local: Atlantic salmon. 

Aquaculture is an essential contributor to the world food security challenge, and every stakeholder has a role to play in the sector’s evolution, delegates were told at the recent Aquaculture’s Global Outlook: Embracing Internationality seminar in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

En las orillas del Lago Cahora Bassa, la granja Chicoa Fish Farm espera crear un efecto dominó para mejorar el suministro de peces y la calidad de vida de una región empobrecida. 

On the shores of Lake Cahora Bassa, Chicoa Fish Farm hopes to create a ripple effect to improve fish supply and quality of life for an impoverished region. 

El fundador y director ejecutivo de Tajin Farms, de 28 años, proveedor de bagres y operación de procesamiento en Warri, Estado Delta, habla de sus humildes comienzos y sus planes audaces para la acuacultura en África. 

The 28-year-old founder and CEO of Tajin Farms – a catfish supplier and processing operation in Warri, Delta State – talks about his humble beginnings and bold plans for aquaculture in Africa. 

Africa offers innumerable opportunities and a raft of challenges for developing a modernized aquaculture industry. Investors are interested, and pursuing with cautious optimism. 

What is the future that Africa wants? Views on how to grow aquaculture on the continent vary widely, but no one disputes the notion that food security, food safety, income generation and job creation all stand to benefit. 

Now is the time for investment in efficiency improvements, better genetics, health management and more competition and innovation in the feed sector. Let's not perpetuate the myth that just a little more investment in some technical solutions will solve the problems in Africa. 

Egypt is the third-largest tilapia producer globally, after China and Indonesia, and accounts for about 80 percent of African production of farmed tilapia. Many of the reasons for Egypt’s successful development of its important tilapia industry could be applied to the rest of African continent. 

A nonprofit organization working to improve conditions in African prisons is hoping tilapia ponds, tended to by inmates, will aid in their nutrition. A small donation from the Global Aquaculture Alliance will go a long way. 

A study by University of Southampton Ph.D. candidate Alison Sky Simmance aims to investigate the role of small scale aquaculture in Malawi, a country where the demand for farmed fish is becoming more urgent in light of declining capture fisheries and high dependency on fish a vital source of animal protein. 

Lake Kariba, on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border, has no industry, few people, high-quality freshwater and an average year-round temperature of 27 degrees-C, all features that can support aquaculture. 

In research on collective marketing involving 32 small-scale fish farmers in Cameroon, 12 made a profit, which sparked further local interest in the concept. 

African fish hatcheries were built to produce catfish and tilapia fingerlings, but practices that fail to maintain genetic diversity limit growth performance.