David Little: Overview of the significance of fish-farming sector: challenges and opportunities

Brussels Development Briefing n.32

Fish-farming the new driver of the blue economy?3rd July 2013

http://brusselsbriefings.net

Overview of the significance of the fish-farming sector: challenges and opportunities.David Little, University of Stirling

EU FP7 Funded Project No. 222889 (2009-2013)

Overview of the significance of the fish-farming sector: challenges and opportunitiesAfrican, Caribbean and Pacific -ACP- countries

David LittleInstitute of Aquaculture

University of Stirling

Farming in water

Photo Trevor Telfer

Photo Andrew Shinn

CTAs agenda

• CTA is committed to sustainable development, increasing prosperity and improving the wellbeing of agricultural and rural populations in ACP countries in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner

• Small-holders, sustainable intensification

Relative contribution of aquaculture and capture fisheries to food fish consumption

Capture

Aquaculture

FAO, 2012

Overview of global fisheries, including aquaculturehttp://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/jpg/0314-fishcatch-EN.jpg

Fish consumption in terms of protein

http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article176.html

Production intensity

Modified from FAO, 2012 Mean data:2008-2010

Contributions to the economy

Modified from FAO, 2012 Mean data:2008-2010

Sector growth

Modified from FAO, 2012 Mean data:2008-2010 compared to 2003-2005

Rapid transformation

• From domestic demand to global trade

• Led by shrimp but now being followed by white fish species, pangasius and tilapia

• Exotic or local species?Source FAO, 2010, modified by Zhang et al, 2012

Shrimp and tilapia in China

Export or local?

Belton et al, 2011

Seafood –Number 1 exported commodity from developing countries

FAO, 2012

A story of cities and deltas…

• Rapid growth of urban settlement• Increasing demand for animal source foods• Comparative change to aquatic food as a

commodity………..• Transformation of land and water use on

deltas towards value-added products• Growth in national, regional and international

trade

..from production to consumption

Urbanisation

PHOTO. P.EDWARDS

Aquaculture has often developed and been sustained nearer high centres of population…..

Urban aquaculture -Africa

Clarias, Abuja,Nigeria

Photo AtandeTunde

Tilapia, Lake Volta, Ghana

Photo Will Leschen

Aquaculture development or aquaculture for development

Belton and Little, 2011

Development and change• Immanent: on-going, undirected• Interventionist: intentional, externally inserted• Returns to ‘small-scale’ typically less than 10-15% of

household income• But often multiple, complex benefits

– -more than 70% of farming families identified more than ten benefits of rice-fish in NW Bangladesh (Haque et al, 2010)

• Incremental rather than transformational• Complexity of social structure and market incentives• Rapid uptake of commercial aquaculture by entrepreneurs

rather than farmers

Does size matter- ‘small-scale’ and poverty

Belton, Haque and Little, 2012

Commodity aquaculture

• ‘Small-scale’ as a term is often misleading and generally not comparable to a small-holder producing a staple crop

• Maybe many benefits elsewhere in the value chain

• Commodity-orientated aquaculture is not always intensive

Can export be compatible with local food security?

Extensive ‘free-range’ shrimp ponds in Southwest Bangladesh

Local food chains and employment

• Income from extensive ‘shrimp’ ponds in southeast Bangladesh less than half of income from shrimp

• Employment gains for the poorest groups

Local fish for local people

Photo:Susan Thompson–

Inconsistent quality seed and feed often undermine sustainability post-intervention

Cage aquaculture

Cage farming in Ghana

• Crystal lakes-overseas investment

• Local markets• Site limitations

Limited freshwater sites

• Cages Lake Victoria Uganda

• Access to sites, exclusion of other users?

Photo Will Leschen

Challenges in attaining positive livelihood impacts

• Aquatic animals in the diet-coastal, lake or delta living people

• Markets-urbanisation, export (not just the West!)• Seed and hatchery• Feed and nutrient management• Markets• Governance• ….and broader development• Benefits not as producers but elsewhere in the value

chain (employment, consumption)

‘Local’ international markets

• Regional trade within Asia and between Asia and elsewhere is growing faster than conventional South-North trade

• Traditional trade between African states in dried, smoked fish

Input costs, output value

FAO, 2012

Jamaica

• Beginning in the 1940s

• by the late 1990s, >500ha, 100 farms

• >3000MT - 85% one company

• significant exports

Photo Janielle Wallace

2007-8

• Loss of export markets• Focus on domestic but lack of competitiveness also• Post Hurricane damage interruptions in fry supply• Gradual contraction ; change from intensive to

semi-intensive

– Local price $4.50/ lb– Imported $2.10/ lb– Failure of ‘eat local tilapia’ campaign

Seed and feed

Broodfish selection, Son hatchery Uganda

Extruded feeds in Ghana, Raanan Feeds Photo Will Leschen

…not just fish and shellfish• Womens’ cooperative

producing seaweed in Tanzania

Linking Asia and Africa

Examples of new projects

• Development of insect larvae production to support high quality feed ingredients for fish and livestock production and off-set costs of sanitary waste disposal (Ghana)

• Fisheries and aquaculture value chain development in Malawi and Uganda

• Developing African Aquaculture Networks Towards Sustainable Innovation

SARNISSA-networking

Visit www.sarnissa.org and sign up now

Thanks

• CTA for the invitation• Will Leschen for African photographs• Neil Handisyde for graphics• Colleagues on the Sustaining Ethical

Aquaculture Trade project• www.seatglobal.eu

• Contact me on dcl1@stir.ac.uk