By Ebuka Onyekwelu, Ph.D
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization – UN FAO, has said that Africa needs to expand its fish farming capacity. This was revealed during the “Our Ocean Conference” in Kenya, where the UN FAO also informed participants that fish and seafood are now a $184 billion worth of trade.
Since 2021, aquaculture has exceeded fish capture in open waters as the main source of fish, accounting for over 100 million tons two years ago, the UN revealed. However, the report also shows that Africa is behind the rest of the world in aquaculture, as only about 18% of fish in Africa comes from fish farms. Reacting to this, the UN FAO admonished that Africa would need to grow its fish farm by a whopping 68% by 2050 so as to meet the needs of its fast-growing population.
Accordingly, this gap, the UN said, is an opportunity waiting to be tapped into. Speaking to the AFP, Manuel Barange, FAO’s director for the fisheries division, said that “It’s an opportunity waiting to be exploited.” However, he wondered “whether the timing is sufficiently fast to catch up with that demand.” Mr. Barange also insists that “Aquaculture can actually be a game-changer… if we manage to develop aquaculture in Africa, there are a lot of opportunities,” he concluded
Over 700 different species of fish are raised globally in fish farms, FAO said, insisting that Africa can play a key role in the global fish supply chain if the continent can tap into the existing opportunity in fish production.
