Building collaborative research partnerships in fish breeding, health and welfare management in Nigeria

Improving local aquaculture practices to overcome Nigeria’s fish supply challenges

Project Partners: Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) and Harper Adams University (HAU)

Aquaculture is an important sector in Nigeria, contributing ~25% of the consumed fish in the country, and with the already over-exploited wild fish sources, local aquaculture remains the main strategy of covering ~40% of the fish supply deficit. In addition to contributing to the food and nutritional security of Nigeria, aquaculture provides employment opportunities for a significant number of Nigerians, especially the youth and women who are mainly involved in the postharvest activities.

The sector is dominated by African catfish and Nile tilapia as the main farmed species, with other species like African bony tongue also gaining popularity among farmers. Despite the current contribution of Aquaculture to meeting the national dietary needs and creation of job opportunities, the sustainability and growth of the sector are strongly constrained by several challenges including lack of genetically improved fish strains, poor genetic management genetic management of the breeding stocks, increased disease outbreaks, limited access to good fish feed, detrimental impacts of environmental changes resulting from climate change, and general lack of technical knowledge to run aquaculture farms efficiently by the farmers. These cause losses, thus limiting the profitability of aquaculture as a business, especially among the smallholder farmers who make up the largest percentage of the aquaculture producers.

Strengthening partnerships to adopt sustainable fish farming technologies

Brazil has a thriving aquaculture industry (worth US$1 billion), dominated by Nile tilapia as the main farmed species in the country. Like Nigeria, Brazil’s fish farming industry is dominated by smallholder farmers. The success and profitability of aquaculture in Brazil have been attained through the application of breeding and genetic tools to produce improved industry, affordable feed development, equipping farmers with technical knowledge in stock management, routine health, and welfare monitoring of the farmed fish. In addition, Brazil has a thriving research community (~100 institutions) in the different components of aquaculture (e.g., fish breeding and genetics, nutrition, health and welfare management), working together with the industry to develop and implement innovations to improve the production efficiency. It is this community of research that the current project seeks to gain access to via the establishment of collaboration partnerships between Nigerian, Brazilian and UK-based scientists to adopt already developed working sustainable aquaculture technologies and practices from Brazil to Nigeria.

These will mainly be in the areas of aquaculture breeding and genetics, fish health and welfare, and general fish stock management, under the ultimate aim of harnessing the sustainability and profitability of aquaculture production in Nigeria.

For more information

For more information on this project, contact us, or view all projects funded under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership programme.

Innovate UK Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership: UK-Brazil-Africa brings together innovative people and organisations to promote climate-smart agriculture in Africa.