Workers at a fish farm in northern Egypt are busy in sorting thousands of wriggling tilapia that pour out of a concrete holding tank. It is told that the fish are sorted, packed into crates and sent to supermarkets in Cairo and Alexandria, where they are sold as “the catch of the day”. It is informed that Egypt has built the largest aquaculture industry in Africa, accounting for four out of every five fish farmed on the continent.
As per record, Egyptian fish farms produced over 650,000 tons of finfish last year, or about 60 percent of the country’s total freshwater and marine fish production, providing a cheap source of protein for the country’s 80 million people. Malcolm Beveridge, Director of Aquaculture and Genetics at the WorldFish Centre, expressed that the increasing growth of aquaculture has kept fish affordable for the majority of Egyptians, so that today fish and poultry prices are more or less similar (cost) per kilo basis.
Historically, commercial fish farming in Egypt began in the 1960s with mullet-rearing pens in coastal lakes and lagoons. The industry has witnessed explosive growth over the past decade. Total aquaculture production has grown by 500 percent since 1998 due to a shift to intensive rearing methods and faster growing species such as tilapia. The General Authority for Fish Resources Development (GAFRD) plans to develop the country’s aquaculture industry further, and has set a goal of 1.1 million tons of farmed fish, or about 75 percent of total fish production, by 2012.
Laws passed over a quarter of a century ago prohibit aquaculture projects from drawing surface water, but a loophole permits fish farms to have first use of groundwater. Integrated aquaculture currently accounts for a small fraction of Egypt’s total fish farm production, but its share is expected to grow quickly. Getting land in Egypt is not so easy now because of competition with tourism and agriculture, which is why mariculture usually favours sea bass and bream, says Sherif Sadek, a local aquaculture consultant.
