Netting higher earnings for tilapia farmers on lake volta

 

 

Project Location Funding Level Funding Period
Sustainable Aquaculture, Limited Dodi Asantekrom , Ghana $250,000 FY 2004-2008

 



SAL's nursery ponds.
SAL's nursery ponds.



Ghana's fishing industry is expanding rapidly to deliver chilled and frozen shrimp, prawns, squid, octopus and ocean fish to the European consumer market, and it currently earns about US $600 million per year from the export of 500,000 metric tons of high-grade seafood. But domestic demand for fish - an estimated 800,000 metric tons, or the equivalent of 25 kilograms per citizen per year - continues to outstrip the production capacity of local producers. As a result, Ghana must import US $200 million worth of fish from Namibia, Mauritania and Chile to satisfy the national appetite.

ADF is supporting the efforts of Sustainable Aquaculture Limited (SAL), a small, woman-owned limited liability company, to expand it cultivation of tilapia along the southern shores of Lake Volta through the use of innovative net-cage technology. SAL breeds tilapia fry and fingerlings in concrete nursery ponds at its facility near the lakeside village of Dodi Asantekrom and then transfers maturing fish to broad, circular wire-mesh pens stationed in the shallows of Lake Volta.

The ADF project will provide SAL with funds to construct three new nursery ponds and expand the number of its offshore net cages from eight to 24. ADF funding will also help SAL improve the quality and efficiency of its operations by allowing SAL to hire additional management staff, improve the quality of its processing facilities, upgrade its basic equipment and add a maintenance workshop. A concrete jetty and a lifting crane will also be installed at the shoreline to facilitate the easy offloading of supplies and harvested fish. SAL will use its own resources to install a pellet feed mill to assist in feeding its fish stock.

SAL's offshore net cages at the southern end of Ghana's Lake Volta.
SAL's offshore net cages at the southern end of Ghana's Lake Volta.

These enhancements are expected to expand SAL's annual production of fresh, whole tilapia from 240 metric tons to more than 4,000 tons by the end of the five-year project. SAL's increased output should also allow the company to expand the number of its full-time employees from 70 to 120, and SAL will establish a health insurance program and a provident fund that will match employee contributions of salary up to the level of 10 percent.

SAL sells its tilapia fresh, and it will expand the geographic range of its market by installing an ice-making machine that will facilitate the packaging and transport of its catch over longer distances.

ADF funding will also help SAL assist local fishing communities on Lake Volta expand their production by sponsoring a pilot out-growers program. The program will stock lake inlets with tilapia fingerlings and provide out-growers with training in stock management and fish processing and preservation. SAL's community outreach will expand the company's supply base and generate more income for independent producers, and SAL plans to establish a community-development fund to benefit the three villages that surround its facility that will be supported by an annual contribution from its profits.

With the worldwide growth of aquaculture as a key element of the commercial fishing industry, the SAL tilapia project is helping Ghanaian producers acquire the tools and resources they need to develop sustainable aquaculture, deliver more product to domestic markets, and provide fishing communities along the shores of Lake Volta with a steady and reliable buyer.

 

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