From 2000 to 2019, Africa’s aquaculture sector grew by 11% annually (Ragasa et al., 2022). Important growth has taken place in large scale investments, creating major fish domestic producers in countries such as Zambia and Ghana. However, subsistence and small-scale aquaculture continue to be important for food security and nutrition, and by providing strategic income diversification from crop and livestock agriculture (AFD, EU and GIZ, 2017). Small-scale fish farmers raise Nile tilapia or native tilapia species. Catfish is a popular cultured fish, but more resources, including pelleted feed and fingerling production, are required. Segmentation of catfish culture allows modest income farmers to purchase feed and fingerlings from those who specialize. Farmers can raise fingerlings to market size quickly in limited space and water because African catfish can breath atmospheric air. Introduced non-native common and other carp have escaped culture, becoming established in some areas and farmed by medium farmers.
The United States Peace Corps and the USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) expert volunteer program have been promoting indigenous aquaculture to improve food security and nutrition, and to develop fish culture as a business. Sullivan was initially involved in Zambia (1999-2001) through the Peace Corps’ Rural Aquaculture Promotion Program and thereafter implemented dozens of F2F assignments in over ten African countries. In Peace Corps, volunteers teach fish farmers to raise tilapia in hand-dug ponds with little or no monetary input because the average farmer’s income was only a few hundred dollars a year from crop farming.
There is high demand for market fish, small-scale commercial fish farming is growing, and fish farmers are creating cooperatives and associations. The F2F program recruits expert volunteers for two-to-four week assignments to teach medium and small-scale commercial farmers skills needed for financial success, including pond construction and management, fish feeding and feed production using local materials, and fingerling production. Topics also include spawning catfish using hormones when available or locally obtained pituitaries from wild fish when not. Assignments also cover business and financial management, marketing, and association building. Finally, value addition can provide greater incomes. As refrigeration and freezing are often difficult due to problems with electricity, smoking and canning can stabilize products for sale when the prices are competitive. The recent foreign investment in African aquaculture creates resources that can also assist smaller fish farms, but in the continued absence of these resources in many countries, affordable indigenous solutions can still be promoted to address problems of suitable culture environments, spawning and maintaining of unwilling broodstock, creating appropriate feeds for all life stages from fry to market to spawners, genetic selection, and creating value added, self-stable products.