{"id":22313,"date":"2022-06-14T15:13:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T15:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/venturing-into-freshwater-fish-farming"},"modified":"2022-06-14T15:13:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T15:13:11","slug":"venturing-into-freshwater-fish-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/venturing-into-freshwater-fish-farming","title":{"rendered":"Venturing into freshwater fish farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>Nicholas James<\/b><\/p>\n

Recently, I heard of a proposed project that planned to produce 90t of tilapia annually from a greenhouse-based system in the southern coastal region of South Africa.<\/p>\n

Whilst it is always encouraging to hear of new projects, promoters and investors should go into such a venture with their eyes wide open, as well as with a certain degree of humility and the knowledge that many producers have tried and failed before.<\/p>\n

Let us examine some of the reasons this happens.<\/p>\n

The fundamentals<\/b><\/p>\n

Before initiating a project, it is crucial to conduct in-depth research. Simply claiming that the \u201ccorrect grow-out and filtration design will be employed\u201d ignores the fact that the techniques of heating, oxygenation, filtration and nitrate disposal in a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) are far from foolproof.<\/p>\n

Certainly, most operators running substantial systems know more than the basics, but their systems may not be economically viable in terms of capital input and running costs.<\/p>\n

Every operator needs to ask whether his or her system has a high food conversion ratio (FCR) at a high stocking level. I challenge anyone operating a warm-water RAS in South Africa to better an FCR of 1:1.5 from fingerling to market size.<\/p>\n

This is due partially to the relatively poor quality of feed available, but also to the need to house fish at high stocking levels (>30kg\/m3 water) to utilise the limited space efficiently and to produce at a viable economy of scale.<\/p>\n

Fish reared in a RAS depend completely on the feed given.<\/p>\n

It takes a superbly designed system and skilled management to turn 1.5kg of feed into 1kg of marketable fish meat repeatedly and profitably.<\/p>\n

Add up all the costs<\/b><\/p>\n

Running costs are often inadequately assessed when promoting a project to investors.<\/p>\n

If a RAS draws about 10KW of electricity continuously (that is two blowers, six small pumps and some lighting), the electricity bill will be over R10 000\/month.<\/p>\n

Labour (two workers) will add another R10 000\/month, and feed (based on a hoped-for 90t production per year, or 7.5t monthly) will mean a bill of R146 250 monthly.<\/p>\n

Add another R20 000 for transport, repairs, packaging, processing, insurance, accounting, Internet connectivity cost, telephone, rates, fingerlings and incidentals, and the 7 500kg fish cleaned to represent 6 675kg sellable will have to be sold for more than R28\/kg just to break even.<\/p>\n

The entrepreneur then sees tilapia fillets or processed tilapia for sale in upmarket supermarkets at over R150\/kg and assumes that he or she can realise a gate price of at least half of this.<\/p>\n

Not true<\/b><\/p>\n

Most supermarkets add far more than 100% to the base price \u2013 and in South Africa, most value-added tilapia originates from Indonesia and other Eastern countries at a landed price of below R30\/kg.<\/p>\n

Value adding by the supermarket then trebles this price to a wholesale value, which is doubled for retail to the public.<\/p>\n

It then competes for head-on with value-added marine products.<\/p>\n

The warning inherent in this is that the production cost of locally produced tilapia must be extremely low to be viable.<\/p>\n

Where 100% dependence on expensive and mediocre feed is necessary, farmers should be aware of the real production costs.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. Nicholas James Recently, I heard of a proposed project that planned to produce 90t of tilapia annually from a greenhouse-based system in the southern coastal region of South Africa. Whilst it is always encouraging to hear of new projects, promoters and investors should go into such a venture with their eyes wide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":22312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-22313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nVenturing into freshwater fish farming - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/venturing-into-freshwater-fish-farming\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Venturing into freshwater fish farming\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press – Namibia. 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