While aquaculture has been practiced in Egypt for thousands of years, and art items dating from the beginning of recorded history contain evidence of the importance of tilapia in Egypt, modern aquaculture in Egypt is relatively new, starting during the sixties and early seventies. Consequently, from the early 1980s onwards the growth of the sector has largely been driven by the private sector, led by many of those returning from overseas training.
Egyptian aquaculture production coming mostly from fresh or brackish water ponds grew from 61,700 tons in 1995 to 1,576,323 tons in 2021 with an average annual growth rate of 8% and this production (GAFRD 2023).
Tilapia is the main farmed species of Egyptian aquaculture with a total production volume rising from 557,049 tons in 2010 to 1,081,202 tons in 2019 representing 66% of the total aquaculture production contributing 43% of total fish consumption in 2019 (El-Sayed and Fitzsimmons 2023).
Key developments that fostered the growth of the industry were based on strong government support, the entrepreneurial nature of the private sector in the country, the introduction of improved strains, the adoption of recent technology, the growth of the domestic feed industry, and the increasing domestic and regional demand due to the large, and ever growing, population (Macfadyen et al., 2012).
Despite its success, the Egyptian tilapia sector faces some constraints and challenges at local and international levels that threatens the sector sustainability, the sector has been impacted by climate change, conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic suggesting that effective resilience planning is needed. Production of farmed tilapia in Egypt was not severely impacted by COVID-19 pandemic, and initial impacts have been limited. Tilapia production declined by 12% from its record high level of 1,081,202 tons in 2019 to 954,164 tons in 2020. Despite post COVID economic impact, tilapia farming sector started to regain its robustness as a resilient sector and production levels increased slowly to reach 963,915 tons in 2021 (GAFRD, 2023). This quick come back of the tilapia farming sector in Egypt can be noticed from looking at the sector progress over the last decade as illustrated in the figure below, and this is an indicator of the sector’s resilience and ability to absorb shocks and overcome serious hurdles. All of these, suggest that there is a real need to understand the challenges and limitations that can impact (influence) the performance of the sector and its sustainability in order to find means and ways for overcoming these issues and maintaining the sector robustness and ability to absorb these shocks.