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African aquaculture: development beyond the fish farm

KEY FACTS
Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA)
National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI) Uganda
Source of the Nile Fish Ltd
Kenya Marine & Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI),
Mwanza Fish Farm
Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute
 
Uganda
Despite global hunger declining, the number of people going hungry in Africa remains high with 30% of people reported to be undernourished in 2010. Fish are an important source of food for many African people, providing around 18% of their animal protein, but with a growing population and capture fisheries largely reaching their limit, many African countries are now looking towards aquaculture to supply an increasing demand for fish.
 

Aquaculture Certification in Thailand

KEY FACTS
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Aquaculture Certification in Thailand
Centre of Excellence on Environmental Strategy for Green Business (VGREEN), Kasetsart University
Network of Aquaculture Centers in Asia-Pacific
 
Thailand
To gain acceptance and remain competitive in international markets, aquaculture producers benefit substantially when their products are accepted by a recognised certification scheme. Statistics suggest that the majority of Asian aquaculture farmers are small-scale producers, but this is the group that finds it most difficult to comply with increasingly stringent production and trading standards. The WorldFish Center is working through an FAO Technical Cooperation Programme project to analyse the current aquaculture certification programs in Thailand’s aquaculture industry and identify recommendations for certification approaches and systems that are inclusive of and benefit small-scale farmers.

Coastal Planning and Management Program for Western Ghana

KEY FACTS
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
University of Rhode Island - Coastal Resources Center (CRC) - lead implementing organization
The Government of Ghana
Friends of the Nation
SustainaMetrix
 
Ghana
The six districts of Ghana's coastal zone represent less than seven percent of the land area of the country, yet they are home to 25 percent of the nation's total population. The combination of increasing food and livelihoods insecurity, population growth, and environmental degradation continues to impact negatively on the quality of human life in this coastal zone. In addition, rapidly evolving extractive industries in the region, including fisheries, plantation crops, hard minerals and petroleum, present challenges that regional governments are not equipped to handle.

Giving Bangladesh’s Shrimp Sector a Competitive Edge

KEY FACTS
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Chemonics Incorporated
 
Bangladesh
The aquaculture industry is an important driver for the economic growth of Bangladesh. It generates more than US$500 million in export sales each year and employs more than 1 million people. Nonetheless, there are still significant opportunities to help the industry maximize its growth. For example, the shrimp sector in the country is unable to achieve its full potential due to poor quality shrimp and low yields that have created a gap between the demand for and supply of shrimp to local processing factories.

Improved value chains


Fish Market, Cambodia
 
As a research organization dedicated to helping achieve development impact we generate and synthesize new knowledge which we then share and help apply. One of the key research questions that we address is: “How can we improve input and output value chains to increase the development impact of aquaculture and fisheries?”
 
Small scale producers have discovered that adopting new technologies is often not enough to increase their productivity unless the ‘value chain’ for their products is enhanced at the same time. The ‘value chain’ involves the full range of activities required to bring a product to market and includes all the different phases of production, processing, packaging, marketing and delivery to the consumer.
 
One approach will include the development of networks of individuals and organizations who come together to share their experience, knowledge, skills, and resources to address issues of mutual interest. For example, the members of a network focused on improved production and marketing of fish might include individual fish farmers, farmers’ organizations, women’s groups, community based organizations, NGOs, local government officers, traders, transporters, processors, service providers, micro‐financiers and insurance agents, retailers and wholesalers, agri‐businesses, researchers and journalists, amongst others.
 
Our research outcomes should bring about improved enterprises and market information, and more equitable participation, leading to increased production and consumption of fish, especially by poor consumers, and increased income for producers, processors and traders.
 
Together with partners we are pursuing our work on value chains through the CGIAR Research Programs, especially that on 'Livestock and Fish'. The program focuses on the development of a number of animal source food value chains, including fish in Uganda and Egypt. We are also using a value chain approach in the CGIAR Research Programs dealing with aquatic agriculture systems, climate change and nutrition. The methodology can help answer questions such as how climate change is likely to affect fish production and access to fish by those who need it most, and also helps identify actions that increase the resilience of fish production value chains to such threats.
 
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Asia


Small-scale fisheries, Cambodia
 
 
In Asia as a whole fish provide 30% of the animal protein in a typical diet. Fishing and related industries provide either the main or a supplementary source of employment, livelihood and income for many of the region’s poor.
 
Recent work at the WorldFish Center has shown that the demand for fish will grow substantially in this region and projections suggest that if production can match demand, then total fish consumption in the region will rise from around 41.5 million tonnes in 2005 to 52.3 million tonnes by 2015.
 
Aquaculture development will be key to meeting that target. Rehabilitating and sustaining coastal fisheries is also crucial for small-scale fisher folk and their families across the region. We are also strongly engaged in addressing the challenges posed by climate change that are poised to have major impact on coastal areas across this region.
 
WorldFish is actively engaged in three areas:
  • South Asia
  • the Greater Mekong Basin
  • Philippines
South Asia
  • South Asia is home to nearly 40% of the world’s poorest people, those who survive on less than a dollar a day. India has the world’s highest proportion of malnourished children closely followed by Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, 29% of preschoolers are underweight. The combined population of these five countries is expected to rise from the current 1.5 billion to 2.2 billion by 2050, with the biggest increases occurring in rural areas where the poorest people live. Together, population growth and global climate change threaten to reverse hard-won gains against extreme poverty and hunger.
  • Our work focuses primarily on Bangladesh. The overwhelming importance of fisheries and aquatic resources there provides a powerful entry point for addressing poverty, food insecurity and vulnerability to environmental shocks (floods, droughts, climate change). Our development of innovative fisheries co-management approaches in Bangladesh has been hailed as “an eminently replicable model for contemporary rural development.” Lessons learned on developing aquaculture in seasonal floodplains, integrating aquaculture with agriculture, and disseminating improved fish seed have also yielded benefits far beyond the country.
The Greater Mekong Basin
  • The Mekong Basin is a rich ecosystem that supports the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor in Southeast Asia. Encompassing the nations of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, it is coming under enormous intensification pressures for multiple uses that threaten to undermine its productivity and resilience.
  • Our work in this area largely focuses on Cambodia. The livelihoods of more that 74% of the population depends on agriculture and fisheries. Food security in Cambodia has traditionally had two dimensions: rice and fish, with fish being a central aspect of rural livelihood strategies. More than 80% of the total animal protein the Cambodian diet is estimated to come from fish and other aquatic animals. 
  • Cambodia has the most intensively exploited inland fishery in the world. The country’s fresh water capture fisheries rank as the fourth most productive in the world after China, India and Bangladesh. There is growing concern that a decline in capture fisheries would have immediate consequences for food security in rural Cambodia as the rural poor face an increasingly short supply of this staple food item in their traditional rice-fish diet.
  • The Mekong River is the second river in the world for its fish diversity, after the Amazon – the magnitude of which is only being discovered. In terms of fish biodiversity, the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, with 197 species recorded so far, as the lake ecosystem having the fourth highest fish diversity in the world, or the richest lake in the world after east‐African lakes.
  • Plans for hydropower development in the Mekong have led to growing concern over the potential environmental, economic and social costs, and there is acute concern over the impact on the basin’s fisheries. Dams impact fish communities and the fisheries dependent upon them by changing the ecological functioning of the river ecosystems that sustain these communities and their fisheries.
The Philippines
  • Comprising more than 7,000 islands, the Philippines has an extensive coastline that is a key environmental and economic resource for the nation. The fisheries sector is vital to the Philippine economy providing substantial employment and income especially in rural areas, contributing to export earnings, and ensuring local food security as well as meeting nutrition requirements.
  • These coasts support a growing tourism industry and fisheries that provide about half of the dietary protein needs of the Philippine population. Fish and fish-based products are the major source of animal protein (70%) for the poor with fish expenditure accounting for over 16% of the total food budget for the lower income group. Mangroves, the salt-tolerant forests that play an important role in stabilizing the coastlines of the Philippines, also provide important nursery grounds for numerous fish species. However, the quantity and quality of harvestable resources from the country‘s coastal waters have declined dramatically due to overfishing and habitat degradation resulting from pollution, sedimentation, and the destruction of mangroves, and now has been exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
 
 
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