WORLD AQUACULTURE 5 Having just read the June issue of World Aquaculture magazine, it was encouraging to see some African content, including your editorial summarizing recent discussions on the SARNISSA African Aquaculture Network (www.sarnissa.org) on the introduction of Pangasius to Nigeria. I hope at some stage this and other African articles you publish will be made available through SARNISSA and elsewhere for the interest and benefit of the thousands of Africans now working in African aquaculture development. Although you have summarized those discussions on the SARNISSA email forum, not always an easy thing to do, I think you have missed out on a quite significant sector and group of individuals who are prominent in this discussion, i.e. those commercial entrepreneurs (some Nigerians included) who are always looking to develop new commercial opportunities and markets, in this case with a new non-indigenous species. This sector on SARNISSA has a voice across the continent and is now quite strong in pointing out that aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa has to be developed as a business. These individuals believe that they or others have the right to bring in a new non-indigenous species if they feel it can be developed into a commercially viable production and value chain system that will provide incomes, employment and supplies of aquatic products to local and regional markets. This is nothing new in aquaculture. The article on Procambarus introduction into southern Spain in the last issue is but one of numerous examples. Pangasius culture is now growing rapidly outside of its Vietnamese home: in the Philippines with government backing and in Bangladesh and India in commercially significant volumes. Why should these other countries and entrepreneurs therein have the opportunity to develop this species in terms of aquaculture but not in Africa or Nigeria more specifically? The position over the last 30 years up to the present day with Nile tilapia in Africa is also instructive. Tilapia are now “coming back home” in the form of improved varieties, such as the GIFT and Chitralada Thai strains from Asia, giving existing and new African fish farmers, often for the first time in their lives, the genetic stock that allows them to cultivate an attractive market-sized product and to produce it sustainably in a shorter growing season with a profitable outcome. Countries like Malawi do not allow these improved Nile tilapia strains and farmers have no choice but to grow indigenous tilapias, which reach 250 g in 8 months or more. In contrast, in neighboring Mozambique, improved tilapia strains are permitted and can are grown to a good market size, 500 g in 6 months. This is not just a specialized issue or concern about maintaining biodiversity in Malawi. Further afield, all over sub-Saharan Africa where Nile tilapia is widespread, the majority of people who wish to farm tilapia in rural and peri-urban areas, probably up 70-80 percent of these by number, do not have access to good genetic material in the form of tilapia fingerlings that will be economically viable to grow in ponds or cages, even if they have commercial formulated feeds and good pond management. The debate of maintaining biodiversity against new introductions in aquaculture is not as simple or straightforward, ethically and socioeconomically, as you made it out to be in your editorial (good and bad). New nonindigenous introductions to a country are often perceived as uniformly dangerous, often by academic researchers who have never tried to grow fish commercially and who have absolutely no intention of compromising their position. These people are equally prominent on the SARNISSA forum. Personally I can see both views and in my words above I am playing devil’s advocate. However, in the end, this segment of the aquaculture community in Africa—the people and entrepreneurs (at whatever level) who actually take the risks and the hits financially in actually trying to produce fish—have a voice. “Biodiversitists” who are opposed to introductions have to compromise and meet somewhere in the middle. If not, the debate rages on and people or the market will just take matters into their own hands and go ahead anyway but often under the wrong conditions and infrastructure. With specific reference to the situation in Nigeria, it is indeed highly commendable what they have done to develop Clarias culture into an industry; they are leading African aquaculture behind Egypt with its tilapia. However, it is by no means clear that bringing Pangasius into the country and beginning to farm it will have a detrimental effect on the Clarias industry or the environment. As you point out, they are two quite different types of fish with different requirements in terms of inputs, management systems, and markets. The heated, but open-to-all discussion on SARNISSA about the introduction of Vietnamese Pangasius to Nigeria illustrates that, although aquaculture is still a relatively young, reactive but growing food production system, it is evolving in response to a wide range of internal and external drivers and stimuli. The evolution of the shrimp industry is also a very good example of this. The new internet age, networking and information flows coupled now with increasingly global, commoditized markets mean that aquaculture can no longer been seen or operate in national bubbles. It is pertinent to look back and better understand the history and evolution of Letter to the Editor (CONTINUED ON PAGE 72)
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