Aquaculture Africa 2023

November 13 - 16, 2023

Lusaka, Zambia

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR TILAPIA WELFARE IN EGYPT

Ahmad Hamza*, Mahmoud Eltholth, Radi Mohammed, Wasseem Emam 

AQUAVET Egypt, Kafr El-Sheikh city (aquavet.egy@gmail.com)

 



 Egypt is the world’s third largest tilapia producer providing affordable  animal source protein for millions of low-income Egyptians . Aquaculture production in Egypt is mainly  based in irrigated earthen ponds located to the North of the Nile delta. Over the last few years, aquaculture industry in Egypt was moving towards intensifications. However, farm management practices were the same and fish farmers still using conventional production methods. This was associated with high mortality rate of unknown reasons particularly in summer known as “summer mortality”. The aim of this study was to understand handling and management of farmed tilapia from hatchery to the consumer. For which four participatory workshops with key stakeholders were conducted in three major tilapia production governorates. The total number of participants was 155 including farm owners, workers, aquatic feed factory owners, and local aquaculture researchers. For each workshop, t he concept of participatory workshops and system thinking was explained. Then p articipants were seated around tables of 5 to 10 each . For each table, one of the research team was facilitator and another one was notetaker. The results indicated that , there is a lack of the concept of tilapia  welfare and there is a need for raising awareness of tilapia farmers and workers towards the best management practices to improve health, productivity, and quality of farmed tilapia. To our knowledge, this is the first study for the assessment knowledge, attitude, and practices of tilapia farming stakeholders towards tilapia welfare.