Liberia's National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA) has moved to implement a project aimed at modernizing government-owned hatcheries and feed mills.
The initiative falls under the larger umbrella of the USD 40 million (EUR 33.8 million) Liberia Sustainable Management of Fisheries Project (LSMFP), which became effective in late 2021 after the conclusion of a nearly three-year planning process.
The LSMFP, which has financial backing from the World Bank, aims to improve the management and governance of the country’s fisheries, enhance the value addition of its fishery products, and support aquaculture development, all of which should help Liberia lessen its reliance on seafood imports and earn more money from the seafood it ships abroad.
Using part of the USD 40 million, NaFAA has begun planning the construction of a commercial fish feed mill sited next to Liberia's largest hatchery, Klay Hatchery, which is also currently undergoing reconstruction under the LSMFP.
NaFAA said it and the World Bank both, ideally, want the hatchery to become a center of excellence “to raise the awareness and interest of the private sector and public-private partnerships to invest in this sector.” The neighboring feed mill will, in turn, “support research activities in the production of quality fish feed, which will be made available on a commercial scale to the general public.”
The hatchery will produce tilapia and catfish fingerlings and have a capacity of 6 million fingerlings a year, capable of providing at least 2,000 metric tons of commercial fish annually.
The feed mill will also help Liberia solve a problem that is rife across many countries in Africa: securing consistent access to high-quality feed.
“There is no proper fish feed currently used in Liberia,” NaFAA said. “Development of advanced aquaculture will [require] investment in developing the fish feed industry.”
A previous survey in support of the LSMFP said the "quality of the fish feed presently used by small growers [in Liberia] has not been checked and confirmed and the feed is usually mixed by the farmers."
Other African countries like Nigeria also struggle to produce enough high-quality fish feed to satisfy demand from their burgeoning aquaculture industries.
According to aquatic food system nonprofit WorldFish, Nigeria produces an estimated 140,000 metric tons (MT) of pelleted feed annually but still has to import approximately 70,000 MT to meet growing demand from aquaculture practitioners mainly specializing in catfish and tilapia production.
Elsewhere, in Namibia and Zambia, prolonged drought has severely affected agricultural operations that produce the raw materials used in aquafeed production, such as maize and pearl millet.
“No one in Namibia is producing fish feed; the Ministry [of Fisheries and Marine Resources] on its own started producing, but because of the type of fish we produce … we need maize and pearl millet to produce,” former Namibia Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Sylvia Makgone said in August of last year. “This drought is all over, so with fish feed, even if the farmers can produce [it themselves], there is not enough raw material.”
To combat these types of issues, NaFAA, in partnership with the World Bank, is aiming to make its aquaculture sector as self-sufficient as possible through the LSMFP.
“Our aim is to build commercially viable and sustainable aquaculture value chains – from seed to feed, grow-out to market. We must industrialize, not remain focused on subsistence farming,” NaFAA Acting Director General Cyrus Saygbe said.
Besides aquaculture projects, the LSMFP also includes several initiatives to improve Liberia’s wild-caught fishery operations.
For instance, via LSMFP funds, NaFAA acquired an inshore industrial fishing vessel, which the authority said is constructed with glass-reinforced plastic and outfitted with modern fishing and navigation technologies to boost the development of a community-based fisheries sector in Liberia that is viable and climate-resilient.
Additionally, earlier this year, LSMFP funds were used to kickstart the construction of a fishing port in the Liberian capital of Monrovia that includes shore facilities for fish auctioning, a landing quay, a central fish market, a processing area, and ice production and solar chill storage facilities.
