Sub-Saharan Africa’s aquaculture production, estimated at 1.7 million
metric tons (MT) of the global 76.6 million MT of production in 2015,
continues to face fish feed shortages.
Those shortages have dimmed
hopes of the sector’s growth in response to the region’s increasing
population – now estimated at one billion people.
According to an African Union report,
stumbling blocks constraining the growth of the region’s aquaculture to
its full potential include “challenges in the supply and access to key
inputs notably, feed, seed, human resources, appropriate technology and
finance.”
Although the existing aquafeed manufacturing capacity in sub-Saharan Africa and the regional demand cannot be determined precisely,
there is an increasing concern that a lack of local access to quality
fish feeds – which has consigned the region into an import-reliant
market – could hamper efforts to scale up transformation of aquaculture
in the region.
In Tanzania, where an estimated 3,400 MT of fish is
produced – 85 percent of it tilapia – aquaculture farmers rely on fish
feed imports from Egypt, Mauritius, The Netherlands, Zambia, and Kenya.
Some
of the region’s aquaculture farmers produce their own fish feed at an
estimated cost of USD 1.30 (EUR 1.44) per kilogram, but the report said
this feed is usually “powdery and un-floating pellets.” The farmers
formulate the fish-feed utilizing locally-produced plant grains such as
cassava flour, rice bran, maize bran, and cotton seed cakes, but the
feeds “are still too costly for small farms to be profitable.”
In Zambia, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports the sector is underexploited because of inadequate capacity to generate adequate quality fingerlings and fish feeds. The landlocked country – which has attracted investments in aquaculture inputs and feed manufacturing from Aller Aqua, Horizon Aquaculture, and Skretting that progressed the development of fish feed milling and input supply facilities – produced an estimated 26,800 MT of fish – 90 percent of it tilapia – from aquaculture in 2017. However, the country’s aquaculture potential is projected to grow to 40,000 MT at least by 2023, according to the Global Aquaculture Alliance.
In
Nigeria – sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest aquaculture producer with an
estimated production of 340,000 MT, 95 percent of it catfish – some
investment has also been made in the country’s fish feed milling
facilities by Aller Aqua and Singapore-based Olam International.
Both Kenya and Uganda are producing floating (extruded) pellets to serve the East African market.
“There
is also a variety of local feed manufacture solutions, especially in
the less-productive aquaculture countries, ranging from
farmer-formulated meal-type diet to a quasi-pellet produced with a
grinder and subsequent drying to form water-soluble, hard, sinking
pellets,” FAO says.
But across the African continent, the majority
of Africa’s feed needs are being met by farm-made feeds, rather than
industry-produced formulas, according to the University of Lilongwe’s
Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“The aquaculture sector relies on farm-made feeds while feed manufactured by the formal industry accounts for less than 20 percent in most of the countries except in Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, and other fast-growing aquaculture countries,” the university said in a report.
FAO expressed optimism
in the growth of sub Saharan Africa’s aquafeeds manufacturing capacity,
especially with the progress of expansion in feed milling capacity in
Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia.
It could be the
shortages of fish feed is providing an opportunity for would-be
investors in aquafeed manufacturing to invest in sub-Saharan Africa,
especially in countries where governments have agreed to address the
high cost of energy, taxation of project equipment, and access to
foreign exchange, the FAO added.
The main challenge for sub-Saharan Africa’s aquafeed, the organization said in its report, is how the region will address the existing need “for research and technology development, in particular the development of high-quality, cost-effective aquafeeds designed specifically for species and life-stages being grown, profitability or viability of different aquaculture production systems, subsequent development of business plans, and value-chain improvement, marketing, and research to inform policy.”
