Tag: fish farming

Aquaculture collaboration between SLU and University of Dar Es Salaam

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This blog post was written by Anna Norman Haldén, research coordinator at the Department of Biomedical Science and Veterinary Public Health, SLU, and Dirk-Jan de Koning, professor at the Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, SLU. Both have contributed as doctoral supervisors and as SLU coordinator and SLU principal investigator, respectively, within the UDSM-SLU aquaculture collaboration.

Research facility for tilapia fish farming in Tanzania. Photo: Francis Pius Mmanda

Year 2022 has been declared by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022). SLU aquaculture researchers collaborate with researchers in countries across the world, including in low- and middle-income countries. One of these countries is Tanzania. Since 2015, SLU and University of Dar Es Saalam (UDSM) have jointly focused on strengthening sustainable small-scale fish farming in Tanzania.

“Small in scale, big in value” is a motto used during IYAFA 2022 to highlight the importance of small-scale artisanal fisheries and aquaculture. Aquatic food (fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants) plays a fundamental role for human well-being and livelihoods around the world. A large portion of this food is produced by small-scale artisanal fishers and small-scale fish farmers.

Fish farming in Tanzania has increased during the past decade but is still considered low in comparison with the country’s potential. The main fish species farmed in Tanzania is tilapia and dominated by small-scale production is in earthen ponds. Since 2015, SLU aquaculture researchers have been part of the Sida-funded Marine Science Program, within the research cooperation between Sweden/SIDA and Tanzania/UDSM, to strengthen capacity building within aquaculture in Tanzania. At the start of the UDSM-SLU collaboration, two focus areas were identified as being crucial for a sustainable development of tilapia production in Tanzania: feed and breeding.

A major challenge for fish farming in Tanzania, and all over the world, is to find a sustainable high-quality feed at a reasonable cost. Within the UDSM-SLU collaboration, the nutritional value of local ingredients available to small-scale farmers in Tanzania was evaluated as potential components of feed to Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). The results showed that good-quality tilapia feed can be produced by replacing up to 50 % of the commonly used fishmeal with locally available feed ingredients. In addition to being a more sustainable feed choice, the use of these alternative ingredients can also reduce the cost of feed for the farmer by up to 30 % compared with a conventional fishmeal-based diet.

Tanzania has identified a great need for faster-growing and better performing strains of tilapia, which can be farmed successfully in great varieties of production environments, e.g. in both fresh and saline waters. The UDSM-SLU collaboration has strengthened the genetic competence among researchers in Tanzania and the results from the breeding research conducted can be used as a guideline for establishing a future tilapia breeding program in Tanzania.

The collaboration between SLU and UDSM has, until now, resulted in two SLU-registered sandwich PhD students that have graduated and one more that will defend her thesis during 2022. In addition, two local PhD students co-supervised by SLU researchers have graduated within the program, as well as one PhD student jointly supervised by Stockholm University and SLU. Linked to the UDSM-SLU collaboration, workshops arranged within the Sida-funded AgriFoSe2030 program have contributed to valuable knowledge-sharing and networking between researchers and farmers in Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Tanzania.

We have done all the ground work to start a systematic breeding program for tilapia that is well suited to the production circumstances in Tanzania. In order to actually establish such a breeding program we need to have long-term uninterrupted funding (decades not years). We also need additional investments in infrastructure to deal with the logistics and biosecurity that is required to deliver healthy and improved fingerlings to the small-scale farmers.

Next phase of the Sweden/SIDA and Tanzania/UDSM cooperation starts July 2022. This means a possible continuation of the UDSM-SIDA aquaculture collaboration, and thus a progression both within the area of developing sustainable fish feed and the establishment of a breeding program for tilapia in Tanzania.

Read two of the doctoral theses produced within the UDSM-SLU collaboration:

Read more about SLU Aquaculture global activities: https://www.slu.se/en/Collaborative-Centres-and-Projects/slu-aquaculture/global-aquaculture-activities-at-slu/

Read more about IYAFA 2022: https://www.fao.org/artisanal-fisheries-aquaculture-2022/home/en/

Sustainable fish farming? Yeast and flies come to the rescue

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By: Alin Kadfak SIANI-SLU Global Communicator and Researcher at the Department of Urban and Rural Development at SLU
This blog was originally posted at SIANI website

Photo: Leon Harris/ Gettyimages

Aquaculture has a tricky reputation; the fish meal is one reason why. But with new research from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), the unsustainable fish feed can become a problem of the past.

Low in saturated fats and high in omega-3, fish has become a popular food choice. Some regions of the world, like Oceania or coastal countries in Asia and Africa, have always had fish-based diets, but recent trends in healthy eating among Americans and Europeans has driven the demand up. Now, we eat fish twice as fast as the fisheries can reproduce. So, unfortunately, the change of heart in eating habits depleted global fish stocks. And, more and more of the fish we eat comes from fish farms.

But the origins of fish feed are yet another sustainability controversy.

Quality fish meal is essential for optimum development, growth and reproduction of the fish. Traditionally, fish meal has been made of wild-caught fish or by-products of fish waste. This conventional method doesn’t only put pressure on marine resources, but also competes for food security because local people could eat the small nutritious fish, instead, it is used for animal feed.

Plant-based feeds were developed to address these concerns. And in the last three decades, plant-based feeds took over animal-based feeds and became the main ingredient for fish meal across the aquaculture industry.

However, this solution brought other challenges: the production of plant-based feeds increases the pressure on land. For example, soy, which is often used for making fishmeal, requires a lot of land, fertilizer and freshwater. Soy farming is notorious when it comes to deforestation in the Amazon and environmental destruction in the Brazilian Cerrado. That is why, for instance, Norwegian farmed salmon producers banned fish meal ingredients made from Brazillian soy.

So, the fish industry is still on the lookout for a better protein substitution.

Photo: Martin Schotte / Pixabay.

Alternative protein for farmed fish

Using microbes, like yeast, fungi, microalgae and mollusks to feed farmed fish has gained attention in recent years. These four categories of microorganisms are promising and can potentially help us make a breakthrough in the sustainability of aquaculture. For one thing, these microorganisms can feed on various carbon sources, including waste streams from wood industry or marine productions.

SLU aquaculture research team partnered with scientists from Norway, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia, Tanzania, India and Rwanda to develop sustainable aquaculture feeds. Micro-fungi is the most promising microbes – the team can replace 20% of soy-based feed for salmon with the protein extracted from micro-fungi without any side effects. SLU researchers are also looking into making quality fish feed from insects that feed on household waste. Some promising research with black soldier flies has already been done and applied at scale to treat organic waste and to produce animal feed at the same time. Another fishmeal substitution could be muscles, and their use has been successfully tested by researchers at Södertörns högskola, another Swedish university.

The pilots are yet to be scaled up and industrial development of the sustainable fishmeal will certainly require closer collaboration between the industry and the researchers as well as further research on its own. However, insects, yeast and fungi can be another rising star in the kingdom of alternative protein, at least in the field of animal feed.

What can consumers do for now?

KRAV, Swedish Sigill and ASC are the main sustainable aquaculture labels available in Sweden today. Apart from fish meal, which is considered to be main focus in the sustainability of aquaculture, these standards also take into consideration animal welfare (if the fish is grown in a cage and the use of medicine), land and water pollution, and slaughtering practices. For instance, KRAV is currently working on their new KRAV label in aquaculture to improve the feed the slaughter method. ASC’s standard includes limits on the use of antibiotics, water purification and traceability to the cultivation site. ASC has also added social criteria to their standard, such as freedom to form an association and a ban on child labour. Svenskt Sigill is a new label, which focuses mostly on fish that grow in closed systems on land. Consumers can study and pay attention to these labels before buying aquaculture products in Sweden.

So, who knows, maybe we are at the crossroads for the next paradigm shift in aquaculture feeds!