The 2022 paper coordinated by the University of Bonn and titled Prospects for Aquaculture Development in Africa – A Review of Past Performance to Assess Future Potential (Hinrichsen et al.) focused on contextualising the aquaculture output of African countries to allow for an depth of understanding beyond an absolute reported tonnage. The current work builds on this and looks at aquaculture growth imperatives in Africa to sustain the current levels of per capita fish consumption.
Africa’s population is fast approaching 1.5 billion (2024), making it the second most populous continent after Asia. The average population growth rate has remained above 2.45 percent from the year 2000, and it is expected that Africa will house 2.5 billion people by 2050. This rapidly increasing population results in a rapidly increasing need for food; especially aquatic foods, and specifically foods produced from within Africa. Additionally, the youthful population of Africa needs skills and jobs, both of which can be addressed by an expanded aquatic food sector.
The 2024 yearbook of the FAO indicates that African capture fisheries yield stands at 10 358 thousand tons (FAO, 2021), with aquaculture at 2 322 thousand tons. This means that the contribution of aquaculture to fisheries supply in Africa is a mere 18,3%; in sharp contrast to the rest of the world where aquaculture supply has surpassed that of fisheries. Moreover, if ignoring the contribution of imports and exports, African per capita fish availability stands at less than 8,5 kg per annum; also in sharp contrast to the global average which is approximately 20 kg per capita per annum. As it is well known that capture fisheries, globally and in Africa, has largely reached capacity, Africa has to look to aquaculture to maintain and increase its per capita aquatic food supply.
In this paper we look critically as to whether aquaculture in Africa is growing fast enough and at the rate at which aquaculture needs to increase to (i) maintain and arrest the current declining levels of per capita fish consumption and (ii) to grow African per capita fish consumption to address the current lag behind global consumptions rates.