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China-Africa Trade Information Service
info.afrindex.com
China-Africa Trade Information Service
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In Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, fish is an important part of the household diet. Fish makes up around 40% of the country's protein intake, with fish consumption at 13.3 kg/person/per year.
Total fish production per year is close to 1 million metric tons (313,231 metric tons from aquaculture and 759,828 metric tons from fisheries). The majority of this fish is consumed domestically, while around 10% is exported.
Tilapia are native to Africa,but have been introduced in many countries around the world.They are disease-resistant, reproduce easily, eat a wide variety of foods and tolerate poor water quality with low dissolved oxygen levels. Most will grow in brackish water and some will adapt to full strength sea water. These characteristics make tilapia suitable for culture in most developing countries.
Nigeria is the second largest producer of farm-raised tilapias in Africa, after Egypt.The first attempt at fish farming was in 1951 and various Tilapia species and the mirror carp, Cyprinus carpio, were used. Tilapias are widely cultivated in ponds, reservoirs and cages in Nigeria.
Tilapia farming technology is well established and tested, ranging in production from 200-2000kg/ha/yr. Tilapia aquaculture was based mainly on cultivated under intensive (commercial) and semi-intensive (artisanal) production systems.
Nigeria needs infrastructure to take advantage of the global aquaculture tilapia set to hit $ 25 billion in 2029, a fisheries expert, Prof. Anetekhai Martin, has said.
Martin noted that while there is a great demand for tilapia, a number of challenges exist. These included increasingly expensive transportation, lack of credit, limited display space and generally poor market infrastructure.
The country has small scale pond farmers who find commercial feeds too expensive, so they compound their own feed on-farm, using alternative feed sources like cocoa pod husk, palm kernel cake and copra cake.
While most of the ingredients used are proven to be viable, they are not produced under strict bio-secure conditions, and naturally affect the final product.
The farmers are responsible for transporting their feed and fingerlings from the hatcheries and purchasing centres to their farms. Apart from adding to their operational costs it provides a further incentive for farmers to produce their own feed and significant levels of stress-induced mortality occur as a result of carrying fingerlings over long distances. In addition, cost of power and others are serious challenges, too.
