Iyaloo Dominiscus and Daniel Hafeni

Egypt’s aquaculture industry (fish farming) is the largest in Africa, and according to FAO (2015), it accounted for about 79% of the country’s fish needs with a market value of about US$2.2 billion in 2015. 

It must be, however, noted that aquaculture in Egypt dates back to 2500BC, but that was a form of traditional aquaculture that focused on the harvesting of tilapia. In the 1930s, the government opened up two research farms that focused on common carp, which carp were kept for research purposes only. 

But in the late 1970s, due to an increased demand for fish and a decrease in captured fisheries due to piracy and increased fishing fleets, the government developed the aquaculture plan to modernise the sector. During this time, the government built modernised hatcheries, grow-out facilities and fry stations. This saw an increase in aquaculture production from 17 000 tonnes to 45 000 tonnes by the early 1980s.

But how is the state spearheading the development of the sector? To achieve this, the Egyptian government focused on taking aquaculture to the people. But this was done carefully to include both the unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour to increase both the employment and nutritional intake. The government encouraged involvement in aquaculture by providing about 58 800 hectares of land for aquaculture purposes. Firstly, it focused on people with land, and those who want to lease land from the government for traditional fish farms. This kind of fish farm is primarily run by families, and thus passed on from generation to generation. It is estimated that this group employs about 40 000+ persons and contributes about 80% of the Egyptian aquaculture production. This group is also partially a form of subsistence farming, thus directly ensuring that the vast majority of these families get the cheap protein from fish. The second group includes those who work in hatcheries, cage farms and the intensive pond culture. This can either be trained technicians or labourers, who work on private farms for a wage. The third group is the government employees, which employees are the driving force in the aquaculture industry because they run the hatcheries, fry collection stations, juvenile production facilities, in research and grow-out government farms. Thus, they have differing levels of education and training, ranging from highly trained experts to unskilled labourers. This is a group that includes extension and training directorates that are in charge of transferring information to farmers either through publishing extension papers, or providing free aquaculture training courses.

What can Namibia learn from Egypt’s state-directed aquaculture industry? The Namibian aquaculture sector is still in its infant stages. The government remains the leading producer through its demonstration farms, while the private sector remains invisible. The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) as the custodian of both marine and inland fisheries has failed to steer the sector forward. But let us focus on the southern part of Namibia, where the MFMR already has an inland aquaculture centre, in addition to the underutilised Fonteintjies community fish farm. 

The south has two of the biggest dams (Nectartal and Hardap) in the country, in addition to the Naute Dam. If efficiently used, the south could feed the whole country, but only if like in Egypt thelocals are given the land to either lease or own (land around Nectartal dam, for example). But before that, the ministry needs to have well-established research centres. The research will help find a new breed of fish with fast growth and high production. Another problem that the Egyptian government tackled before the massive aquaculture production was the manufacturing of extruded fish feed. Namibia’s aquaculture sector will remain in its infant stage as long as we keep importing fish feed. The success of Egyptian aquaculture depended on having experts in different fields such as fish breeding, fish parasites, diseases, feed manufacturing, etc., in the government structures to guide the fish farmers. It also supported independent researchers and experts who formed their businesses to provide services to private fish farmers. The development of the aquaculture sector is crucial at this point, with the changing climate, increased fish piracy and fishing fleets all leading to decreased captured marine and inland fisheries. 

Africa is characterised as the most vulnerable continent to climate change. Hence, there is a need to increase our attention on drought-resistant food products, and more importantly, fish farming as captured fisheries continue to decline. There is also a need to increase research on fish and fisheries products. Lastly, with the world population expected to be over nine billion by 2050, the untapped potential of Africa’s extensive inland waterways and coastlines creates a significant opportunity for aquaculture to meet the rising demand for fish protein from a growing and rapidly urbanising consumer population.

* Iyaloo Dominicus is a third-year Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences student at UNAM.

* Daniel Hafeni is an MSc candidate at the University of Limpopo and an intern at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

The opinions expressed here are entirely ours, and not of the schools or organisations we work for.