A Strategic Reassessment Of Fish Farming Potential In Africa

"(Reprint. First published in 1998) The present study is an update of an earlier assessment of warm-water fish farming potential in Africa, by Kapetsky (1994). The objective of this study was to assess locations and areal expanses that have potential for warm-water and temperate-water fish farming in continental Africa. The study was based on previous estimates for Africa by the above author, and on estimates of potential for warm-water and temperate-water fish farming in Latin America by Kapetsky and Nath (1997). However, a number of refinements have been made. The most important refinement was that new data allowed a sevenfold increase in resolution over that used in the previous Africa study, and a twofold increase over that of Latin America (i.e. to 3 arc minutes, equivalent to 5 km x 5 km grids at the equator), making the present results more usable in order to assess fish farming potential at the national level. A geographical information system (GIS) was used to evaluate each grid cell on the basis of several land-quality factors important for fish-farm development and operation regardless of the fish species used. Protected areas, large inland water bodies and major cities were identified as constraint areas, and were excluded from any fish farming development altogether. Small-scale fish farming potential was assessed on the basis of four factors: water requirement from ponds due to evaporation and seepage, soil and terrain suitability for pond construction based on a variety of soil attributes and slopes, availability of livestock wastes and agricultural by-products as feed inputs based on manure and crop potential, and farm-gate sales as a function of population density. For commercial farming, an urban market potential criterion was added based on population size of urban centres and travel time proximity. Both small-scale and commercial models were developed by weighting the above factors using a multi-criteria decision-making procedure. A bioenergetics model was incorporated into the GIS to predict, for the first time, fish yields across Africa. A gridded water temperature data set was used as input to a bioenergetics model to predict number of crops per year for the following three species: Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) and Common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Similar analytical approaches to those by Kapetsky and Nath (1997) were followed in the yield estimation. However, different specifications were used for small-scale and commercial farming scenarios in order to reflect the types of culture practices found in Africa. Moreover, the fish growth simulation model, documented in Kapetsky and Nath (1997), was refined to enable consideration of feed quality and high fish biomass in ponds. The small-scale and commercial models derived from the land-quality evaluation were combined with the yield potential of each grid cell for each of the three fish species to show the coincidence of each land-quality suitability class with a range of yield potentials. Finally, the land quality-fish yield potential combinations were put together to show where the fish farming potential coincided for the three fish species."

This publication contains background documents and papers presented at a workshop on integrated irrigation aquaculture (IIA), held in Mali in November 2003, as well as the findings of FAO expert missions on IIA in the West Africa region. The rationale for IIA development lies in its potential to increase productivity of scarce freshwater resources and to reduce pressure on natural resources, issues of particular important in the drought-prone countries of West Africa.

Given the recent expansion and commercialization of aquaculture in Zambia, an important question that needs to be explored is how have the recent changes in the Zambian aquaculture sector contributed to the needs of the poor? The aim of this report is to (a) outline the current trajectory of aquaculture development in Zambia and (b) evaluate whether these development efforts are inclusive of and responsive to the needs of the poor.

Over the last two decades there has been increasing recognition that problems in oceanography and fisheries sciences and related marine areas are nearly all manifest in the spatio-temporal domain. Geographical Information Systems (GIS), the natural framework for spatial data handling, are being recognized as powerful tools with useful applications

The current high demand for fish and increased awareness of the role of the environment in supporting human well being has led to a situation where attitudes to inland water resources are changing rapidly. Trends in resource use and environmental impact are very evident in inland waters which are particularly vulnerable as they act as collectors of all the activities occurring in their basins and rank as some of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. The principle changes influencing the evolution of the aquatic resource for fisheries are described in this book, which has been compiled for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.