Sustainable aquaculture developments in Kenya
This report (PDF) and brief (PDF) of the 3R Kenya project provide an overview of how the Kenyan aquaculture sector performs in three analytical domains: the robustness of the supply chain, the reliability of institutional governance and the resilience of the innovation system. In concludes that the full potential of aquaculture has not been realized yet despite the immense opportunities – mainly because it had little priority. The sector has enormous investment potential, but inadequate institutional and policy frameworks and low investmentin fish production and technologies have caused the sector to stagnate. Stakeholders identified what will improve the status of aquaculture, including innovations and improvement by actors in the value chain and strategies to add value to products as a market entry point. However, this requiers support in terms of training and credit facilities. Moreover, supporting private sector may result in the exploitation of the immense potential, specifically in seed and feed production.
Another report (PDF) and brief (PDF) of 3R Kenya compared the successful commercial aquaculture sector in Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana resulting in lessons for Kenya. Key messages include: 1) Solving the shortage of fingerling and feed supplies can increase the ability to produce with low variablity of supply over time; 2) Conducting innovative campaign designs can lead to considerable increase in per capita fish consumption; 3) Extending opportunities for urban markets can be obtained by complementing tilapia production systems with catfish production; 4) Accessing market information and receiving technical support and update on emerging demands from the industry, can create possibilities for aquaculture farmers to increase stable supplies; 5) Taking into account environmental sutainability and climate resilience should be made obligatory when promoting more intensive production systems; 6) Accompanying growth of cage culture in lakes with appropriate regulations of open water systems is needed to guide sustainable cage farming; 7) Linking research to industry will ensure relevance of research to sector needs; 8) Implementing appropriate sector growth driven policies can improve sector investment contexts.
A workshop report about this study is also available here.