Download or read book A blue revolution in sub Saharan Africa Evidence from Ghana s tilapia value chain written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global growth in aquaculture is underway – a “blue revolution” featuring rapid increases in demand for fish and a corresponding surge in aquaculture production. This paper describes the fast-growing tilapia value chain in Ghana to demonstrate the features of a nascent blue revolution in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to illustrate its potential for job creation and reducing poverty and food insecurity there. Tilapia production has been growing at 15 percent annually in SSA, but imports are also surging to satisfy the growing appetite for tilapia. This paper illustrates how aquaculture can grow sustainably in SSA within the context of growing demand and global competition. A value chain analysis is conducted using secondary data analysis, desk reviews of experiences and lessons from other countries, interviews with 95 actors in the tilapia value chain in Ghana, and detailed production and profitability data from Ghanaian tilapia farmers. A profitable farmed tilapia industry has been established in Ghana with the potential to expand supply to satisfy local demand and to export to neighboring countries. Productivity in the industry has grown mainly through reducing the mortality rates of fingerlings and improvements in the supply of locally-produced high-quality fish feed. Feed costs remain high. However, there is potential to reduce those costs by improving the productivity of crops that are used in fish feed, particularly maize and soybean. Reducing local feed costs will have positive spillover effects on both other pond-based aquaculture systems and on the livestock feed sector. Moreover, Ghana can expand it fish feed production to be an important source of feed within SSA. The industry can further increase aquaculture productivity through the adoption of faster-growing fish strains and better management practices. Ghana’s aquaculture sector could grow even faster by adopting lessons from other countries, including on infrastructure provision, fiscal incentives for the production of fish feed ingredients, and sustainable fish farming practices, particularly through paying close attention to water and feed quality and addressing food safety concerns within the sector.

Download or read book Immediate impacts of COVID 19 on the aquaculture value chain in Ghana written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana’s aquaculture sector is among the recent success stories of fast-growing agricultural value chains in Africa south of the Sahara. The sector has also shown its vulnerability, with the infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus spreading through tilapia farms in Lake Volta in late 2018. The global COVID-19 human pandemic reached Ghana in early 2020, affecting the sector directly and indirectly. Using a value chain approach, phone interviews were conducted with 369 small-scale fish farmers in six major producing regions, with 12 other value chain actors, and with 423 consumers in the capital, Accra, to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the sector. All value chain actors interviewed reported being affected directly by COVID-19 related restrictions on movement and indirectly by reduced demand for tilapia because of closures in the tourism and hospitality industries, important consumers of fresh tilapia. The crisis has reduced incomes for most actors along the aquaculture value chain and is anticipated to reduce future production. Most fish farmers surveyed were affected by disruptions in input and output markets. Two-thirds of the sample farmers were growing fish and 6 percent were harvesting when the COVID-19 crisis hit. Fifty-four percent of those growing fish experienced difficulties in accessing inputs – mainly fish feeds. Of those harvesting during the crisis, most experienced difficulty in selling their fish mainly because of low demand from buyers, lower tilapia prices, and higher transportation costs than before COVID-19. Income losses among fish farmers, including from other sources, such as crop farming, wage employment, and other own businesses, limits the funds that they have available to finance fish farming operations or to invest in future production capacity. Likewise, reduced incomes and purchasing power of consumers is causing a sharp decline in demand for fish.

Download or read book SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF TILAPIA FARMING IN AFRICA written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-05-28 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes five studies on tilapia farming in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, which together accounted for nearly 95 percent of Africa’s tilapia aquaculture production in the mid-2010s. Tilapia value chains are analysed from various perspectives: technical, economic, social and institutional.

Download or read book Involving women and youth in responsible investment in agriculture and food systems in Ghana written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2021-10-27 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women and youth-led agri-enterprises (WYE) (which may also be operating as family businesses) in agricultural value chains have been identified as catalysts for rural transformation given their potential for creating employment and stimulating value addition both on and off-farm. Given that agriculture and food systems are likely to remain the key generators of employment in Ghana over the coming decades, and that 80% of all activities in the midstream of food value chain are undertaken by SMEs in Africa. It is very much necessary to generate the evidence to support the argument that family, women and youth-led agribusinesses have a key role to play in the rural transformation pathway underway in Ghana.

Download or read book Consumer demand and willingness to pay for safe food in Accra Ghana Implications for public and private sectors roles in food safety management written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumer demand for food safety is likely to be an important driver of public policies and industry-led efforts to reduce information asymmetry on food attributes and improved food safety. This paper examines the attribute demand for chicken meat and tilapia among 803 shoppers in Accra, Ghana. Freshness is the main attribute demanded by the overwhelming majority of shoppers, followed by food safety, price, taste and size. Consumers are willing to pay price premiums for food safety certifications, i.e., those certified according to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles or certified as free of antibiotic residue. However, the price premium shoppers are willing to pay for improved food safety vary by shoppers type. A third of tilapia shoppers and half of chicken meat shoppers are classified as food safety conscious shoppers and willing to pay a 10 to 12 percent higher price than noncertified products. In comparison, only a tenth of shoppers are considered to be price conscious and willing to pay a small premium (< 1 percent) for certified safe foods. We also tested an information treatment on the negative health implications of food contamination and its effect on shoppers’ decisions. The information treatment randomly assigned to shoppers was a significant predictor of food safety attribute demand for chicken meat but not for tilapia, which may be linked to greater awareness of and concern about antibiotic misuse in poultry production. Our findings generally point to a concern about food safety and a strong demand and willingness among consumers to pay premiums for certified safe foods, thus providing support for public- or industry-led schemes to provide food safety information to consumers.

Download or read book Inclusive business models for access to quality fish seed and technical assistance Insights from Ghana written by Kruijssen, Froukje and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-07-08 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, Ghana’s tilapia farming has experienced tremendous growth in production; however, much of the growth has been driven by large-scale cage farmers around Lake Volta. It remains unclear how this growth is and can be made more inclusive of poor and young women and men. This study was conducted to analyze different inclusive business models along the fish seed value chain that can potentially be implemented in Ghana. Based on literature review, field interviews, analysis of survey data, and stakeholder workshops, this study develops four business model prototypes for seed multiplication and distribution to increase farmers’ access to and use of quality tilapia seed: (1) Nursery , which buy fish fry from a reliable hatchery, transport them to locations near other farmers, and grow it to a larger size; (2) Local feed mill, with pelleting machine and technical knowledge to advise on feed formulation; (3) Agents, technical experts who supply fingerlings, handle transport and marketing, and provide technical advice; and (4) Local hatchery, which obtains brood stock from a reliable source, produces local fingerlings to sell to nearby farmers, and provides technical support. Initial ex ante financial and profitability analyses were undertaken and will be refined according to the actual context in the particular district where the sensitization and pilot-testing will take place. These business models have the potential not only to increase farmers’ access to and use of quality tilapia seed but also to provide livelihood and income generation along the fish seed value chain.

Download or read book Characterization of fish farming practices and performance Baseline study and implications for accelerating aquaculture development in Ghana written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-06-19 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, the aquaculture sector in Ghana has experienced tremendous growth—driven mainly by large-scale cage farms—but it has been unclear how the rural poor have shared in this growth. A research project has been initiated to help diagnose, design, and test interventions for better inclusion of the rural poor, women, and youth in the tilapia value chain. This report describes the baseline data on 603 small-scale tilapia farmers in Ghana. The data collected during two-hour face-to-face interviews during May–July 2019 are disaggregated by socioeconomic indicators, gender, and age group. Baseline data show that 9 percent of farm managers and owners were women, and an additional 9 percent of farms engaged women in some decision-making. Moreover, women contributed 16 percent of family labor and 5 percent of hired labor on farms. Youth represented 14 and 24 percent of owners and managers, respectively, but contributed 68 percent of the total family and hired labor on farms. A large majority of managers and owners had at least high school education, with a third of owners and a quarter of managers attaining at least a college degree. In Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions especially, most farmers engaged mainly in crop farming and non-farm businesses as their main livelihood, with fish farming as a small contributor to overall household income and livelihood. Farmers in all regions had poor record-keeping and management practices and low compliance with sanitation, fish health, and food safety standards. A wide variety of input usage, management practices, and performance was observed among fish farms. As a result, the profitability of fish farms was also wide-ranging, between –12.00 and 46.00 cedi per m2, with an average of 8.82 cedi per m2. Despite wide variability in production and profits, the majority of farmers experienced positive profits. On average, a farmer received a profit of 2.4 cedi per kilogram of tilapia produced or a 27 percent profit margin. These encouraging figures indicate that farmers who adopt good aquaculture practices can achieve respectable profits.

Download or read book An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development How much can Africa learn from Asia written by Diao, Xinshen, ed. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.

Download or read book Blue Frontiers written by and published by WorldFish. This book was released on 2011 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sub Saharan Africa SSA Report written by International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (Project) and published by Agriculture at a Crossroads. This book was released on 2009 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) looks realistically at how we could effectively use agriculture/AKST to help us meet development and sustainability goals. An unprecedented three-year collaborative effort, the IAASTD involved more than 400 authors in 110 countries and cost more than $11 million. It reports on the advances and setbacks of the past fifty years and offers options for the next fifty years. The results of the project are contained in seven reports: a Global Report, five regional Sub-Global Assessments, and a Synthesis Report. The Global Report gives the key findings of the Assessment, and the five Sub-Global Assessments address regional challenges. The volumes present options for action. All of the reports have been extensively peer-reviewed by governments and experts and all have been approved by a panel of participating governments. The Sub-Global Assessments all utilize a similar and consistent framework: examining and reporting on the impacts of AKST on hunger, poverty, nutrition, human health, and environmental/social sustainability. The five Sub-Global Assessments cover the following regions: Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) East and South Asia and the Pacific (ESAP) Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) North America and Europe (NAE) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Download or read book Solar powered cold storages and sustainable food system transformation Evidence from horticulture markets interventions in northeast Nigeria written by Takeshima, Hiroyuki and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern cooling technologies that utilize renewable energy sources have been increasingly recognized as a promising tool to address a multitude of challenges emerging in progressively complex food systems in developing countries. When provided as cold-storages inside horticulture markets, cooling technologies can potentially contribute to improved quality of products and strengthened vertical linkages. Knowledge gaps about the actual impacts of these technologies in developing countries remain, especially in Africa south of Sahara (SSA). This study partly fills this knowledge gap by providing evidence from the evaluation of recent interventions in northeast Nigeria in which 7 small solar-powered cold-storages were installed across 7 horticulture markets. Combinations of difference-in-difference and variants of propensity-score-based methods suggest that using cold-storages significantly increased horticulture sales volumes and revenues of market-agents. Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that increased net revenues for market-agents may be sufficiently large to recoup the investments and operating costs of cold-storages within a reasonable time frame. Using cold-storage also reduced the share of food loss and lengthened the products' shelf-life, while raised prices received by both market-agents and farmers, which were associated with improved product quality, expanded value-adding activities by market-agents, and increased use of advance payments. We find no evidence of negative spillover effects inside horticulture markets. Finally, additional food-science experiments confirm that cold-storages preserve original physical and nutritional qualities of key horticultural products several days longer than products stored under ambient temperature.

Download or read book The Third International Symposium on Tilapia in Aquaculture written by Roger S. V. Pullin and published by WorldFish. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fish to 2020 written by Christopher L. Delgado and published by WorldFish. This book was released on 2003 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seemingly inexhaustible oceans have proved to be finite after all. Capture of wild fish have leveled off since the mid-1980s, and many stocks of fish are fished so heavily that their future is threatened. And yet the world's appetite for fish has continued to increase, particularly as urban populations and incomes grow in developing countries. Aquaculture--fish farming--has arrived to meet this increased demand. Production of fish from aquaculture has exploded in the past 20 years and continues to expand around the world. But will aquaculture be sufficient to provide affordable fish to the world over the next 20 years? And what environmental and poverty problems will aquaculture face as it expands? Using a state-of-the-art computer model of global supply and demand for food and feed commodities, this book projects the likely changes in the fisheries sector over the next two decades. As prices for most food commodities fall, fish prices are expected to rise, reflecting demand for fish that outpaces the ability of the world to supply it. The model shows that developing countries will consume and produce a much greater share of the world's fish in the future, and trade in fisheries commodities will also increase. The authors show the causes and implications of these and other changes, and argue for specific actions and policies that can improve outcomes for the poor and for the environment.

Download or read book Impacts of COVID 19 on food security Panel data evidence from Nigeria written by Amare, Mulubrhan and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper combines pre-pandemic face-to-face survey data with follow up phone surveys collected in April-May 2020 to quantify the overall and differential impacts of COVID-19 on household food security, labor market participation and local food prices in Nigeria. We exploit spatial variation in exposure to COVID-19 related infections and lockdown measures along with temporal differences in our outcomes of interest using a difference-in-difference approach. We find that those households exposed to higher COVID-19 cases or mobility lockdowns experience a significant increase in measures of food insecurity. Examining possible transmission channels for this effect, we find that COVID-19 significantly reduces labor market participation and increases food prices. We find that impacts differ by economic activities and households. For instance, lockdown measures increased households' experience of food insecurity by 12 percentage points and reduced the probability of participation in non-farm business activities by 13 percentage points. These lockdown measures have smaller impacts on wage-related activities and farming activities. In terms of food security, households relying on non-farm businesses, poorer households, those with school-aged children, and those living in remote and conflicted-affected zones have experienced relatively larger deteriorations in food insecurity. These findings can help inform immediate and medium-term policy responses, including social protection policies aiming at ameliorating the impacts of the pandemic, as well as guide targeting strategies of governments and international donor agencies by identifying the most impacted sub-populations.

Download or read book Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-01-06 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report indicates that climate change will significantly affect the availability and trade of fish products, especially for those countries most dependent on the sector, and calls for effective adaptation and mitigation actions encompassing food production.

Download or read book Access to markets for smallholder farmers in Alto Mol cue and Molumbo Mozambique Mid term impact evaluation of INOVAGRO II written by Hosaena Ghebru and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Innovation for Agribusiness (InovAgro) project, which launched with its first three year phase in 2010, uses a market system development (MSD) approach towards the goal of increasing incomes of men and women small-scale farmers in northern Mozambique. InovAgro interventions promote improved agricultural productivity, participation in selected high-potential value chains and the development of inclusive and sustainable market systems, such that impacts are expected to last long beyond the termination of the project. This paper presents results from a midline quantitative impact evaluation of the second phase of the InovAgro project interventions (2014-2017). In it, we use a carefully designed and executed quasi-experimental study design to credibly attribute changes in market engagement and welfare of participating farmers to exposure to the InovAgro II project, identifying and testing in what respects the intervention was most successful, and what regard it had less impact. Although InovAgro II projects operate in 11 districts of Zambézia and Cabo Delgado provinces, this impact evaluation focuses on two districts in Zambézia province (Alto Molócue and Molumbo), and in terms of value chains, focuses on the soybean and pigeon pea high-potential value chains, while the InovAgro II project interventions focus on these in addition to maize, sesame and groundnut. A baseline survey was undertaken in 2015 covering the 2014/2015 agricultural season and a midline follow-up survey was conducted in 2017, covering the 2016/2017 agricultural season and reaching 1,749 households of the original 1,886 households interviewed in the baseline survey. Using difference-in-difference estimation and propensity score matching, we find that exposure to the InovAgro II project is associated with an increase in the proportion of households selling soybean and pigeon pea by approximately 5% and 16%, respectively (significant at the .01 level). Exposure to the InovAgro II project also results in significantly higher shares of smallholder farmers using improved seed for soybean and pigeon pea (an increase of 6% for soybean and 2% for pigeon pea). We find that the InovAgro II project is also associated with significant increases in access to agricultural output market information from formal sources (5%) and hired labor for farming activities (8%). Despite the significant impacts on short term outcome variables, exposure to the InovAgro II project had limited impact on long term outcome variables, such as on rural-urban migration as well as engagement in the non-farm sector (two proxies for assessing potential welfare implications of the project) however this finding is not surprising given the impact evaluation covers only two years-a short period of time to bring about the long-term impacts expected to eventually emanate from an MSD project.

Download or read book The State of the World s Aquatic Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-07-24 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conservation, sustainable use and development of aquatic genetic resources (AqGR) is critical to the future supply of fish. The State of the World’s Aquatic Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is the first ever global assessment of these resources, with the scope of this first Report being limited to cultured AqGR and their wild relatives, within national jurisdiction. The Report draws on 92 reports from FAO member countries and five specially commissioned thematic background studies. The reporting countries are responsible for 96 percent of global aquaculture production. The Report sets the context with a review of the state of world’s aquaculture and fisheries and includes overviews of the uses and exchanges of AqGR, the drivers and trends impacting AqGR and the extent of ex situ and in situ conservation efforts. The Report also investigates the roles of stakeholders in AqGR and the levels of activity in research, education, training and extension, and reviews national policies and the levels of regional and international cooperation on AqGR. Finally, needs and challenges are assessed in the context of the findings from the data collected from the countries. The Report represents a snapshot of the present status of AqGR and forms a valuable technical reference document, particularly where it presents standardized key terminology and concepts.