September - 2019

46 / TREND / E-commerce
TREND / 47
Jeroen van Loon
Zimbabwe. In Zambia, for example, Yalelo has 75 cages in Lake
Kariba that are each the size of a large public swimming pool.
The company employs over 650 people, sold 9,000 tonnes of
tilapia last year and plans to sell 15,500 tonnes this year, which
makes it the largest aquaculture production business in Africa.
“Responsible aquaculture can be one of the most environmentally
sustainable forms of meat production, and it’s the
only realistic solution to meet the demand for fish in growing
African economies,” says Adam Taylor, CEO of FirstWave
Group (Yalelo’s parent company). “For each kilo of meat, fish
eat one quarter less feed than poultry and produce half as
much carbon dioxide. Compared to beef, fish need only 20
percent of the feed and produce 95 percent less carbon dioxide.
This makes fish more affordable and more sustainable.”
Cage culture farmers are also assured of a growing
demand for fish in Africa, which is driven by population and
income growth, and an increasing appreciation of health
benefits of fish consumption. Fish is a good source of protein,
which helps to maintain muscle; a rich source of vitamins and
minerals (vitamin B12, vitamin D, iodine and zinc) that are
necessary to maintain healthy skin, hair and nails; and it
contains lots of omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for
the development of the brain and eyes.
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?
Despite all of this, cage culture isn’t the silver bullet that
some imagine it to be. Starting a company comes with numerous
challenges. For instance, it’s capital-intensive because cages,
fish fingerlings and fish feed need to be procured upfront; the
last being expensive in most African countries due to a lack of
local millers producing high-quality and affordable fish feed.
Furthermore, some experts are critical of cage culture because
“Responsible aquaculture
can be one of the most
environmentally sustainable
forms of meat production”
The largest cage culture
players in Sub-Saharan Africa
- in terms of sales per month -
• YALELO (Zambia): 1,100 tonnes
• LAKE HARVEST (Zimbabwe, Zambia & Uganda):
550 tonnes in total
• TROPO FARMS (Ghana): 550 tonnes
• VICTORY FARMS (Kenya): 250 tonnes
• IG INVEST (Uganda): 200 tonnes
• TRITON AQUACULTURE (Ghana): 150 tonnes
some companies can chase greater income at the expense of a
more sustainable approach. Overcrowded cages, for example,
can lead to high mortality rates, disease, and parasite infestations.
And contaminants from aqua farms, such as fish excrement;
uneaten, chemical-laden food; and swarms of parasites
might spread to the surrounding water.
To avoid these problems, Rehmann located his farm in a
deep part of Lake Victoria with enough volume to absorb the
fish faeces, and with strong enough currents to flush fresh
water through the cages, maintaining a healthy environment
for the fish. He makes sure not to put too many fish in one
cage and adheres to the lake’s ecosystem by producing Nile
tilapia, which was already introduced in Lake Victoria in the
1950s. “As we use high-quality feed and environmental best
practices, we’re actually seeing an increase in wild fish nearby
and a species of endangered tilapia is being successfully reintroduced
in the waters around our farm,” adds Rehmann.
Government recognition is usually a good barometer of
the feasibility of new methods, and cage culture is already
attracting such attention. Having launched numerous policies
in favour of the emerging cage culture sector, African governments
are now recognising cage culture’s potential. In Kenya,
for example, the local government has invested US$10,000 in a
cage culture project at Chinga Dam. In Ghana, the government
hands out grants to local people to start cage farms. As
a result, around six commercial companies and dozens of
individual entrepreneurs are now using this farming method at
Ghana’s Lake Volta, the largest artificial reservoir in the
world. And the cage system now accounts for 97 percent of
the total fish production in Ghana.
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY
Although the cage culture industry in Kenya is still nascent,
several successful local players have already emerged, such as
Lake View Fisheries (just off Mfangano Island), which Dr
Gilbert Mbeo and his sister Michelle founded. “We grew up
surrounded by a thriving capture fishery, but due to overfishing,
Lake Victoria became less productive, factories closed, people
lost their jobs and malnutrition and poverty became rife,” says
Dr Mbeo. Nowadays, Lake View Fisheries produces 200 tonnes
of fish annually and plans to scale up its operations, employing
hundreds of Kenyans and making thousands of tonnes of
locally produced fish protein available to all Kenyans at an
affordable price.
Taylor – of FirstWave Group – solved the shortage of
affordable, high-quality fish feed by constructing (in partnership
with Danish fish feed company Aller Aqua) Sub-Saharan
Africa’s largest fish feed factory in Zambia. “As fish feed represents
over 50 percent of the costs of operating a fish farm,
it’s very important to have a reliable source of high-quality
affordable fish feed,” says Taylor, who also exports the feed to
Kenya and Uganda, and recently opened his first depot in
Kampala. Yalelo, which sells 70 percent of its fish through 50
Yalelo retail shops throughout Zambia, recently started to export
fish to Democratic Republic of the Congo and intends to
export to several other African countries before the year’s end.
According to Taylor, producing fish locally has countless
benefits above not importing fish from Asia, such as job
creation in low-income areas, a reduction of the carbon footprint,
verifiable quality standards, economic improvement and
improved food security. Rehmann is also optimistic about cage
culture in Sub-Saharan Africa, and he predicts a bright future
for the industry. “We can bring thousands of people into this
industry,” he says. “Cage fish farming could create food selfsufficiency
for Kenya and Uganda in the foreseeable future;
this is how we are going to feed the people.”
8.9
The average annual per capita fish
consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa is 8.9 kg,
compared to a world average of 18.9 kg
21
Sub-Saharan Africa experienced an
average annual growth rate in aquaculture
production of 21% during the last decade
25-50
Most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
experienced a growth in fish consumption
from around 25–50% between 2007 and 2015
84
Aquaculture production in Sub-Saharan
Africa in 2025 is projected to be one million
tonnes, an increase of 84%
Jeroen van Loon