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Improving tilapia cultures in Africa

Editor/Mohamed Shihab

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donates $15.3 million to Zoetis, an animal health company, to promote sustainable aquaculture production and improve livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa.

The five-year initiative is part of the company's long-term sustainability goals and aims to improve animal health and food safety in some of the world's fastest developing areas. This new grant, which is part of the project 'Innovative animal health models for small producers', will facilitate access to veterinary diagnostic products, services and techniques to increase the productivity of small farms, and will focus especially on the Support for women producers.

A.L.P.H.A. Plus will focus on dairy, beef, poultry and aquaculture production in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, now including Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire and five other markets in eastern, western and central sub-Saharan Africa .

Following the success of the first A.L.P.H.A. of the company, which began in 2017 in Uganda, Nigeria and Ethiopia, and later expanded to Tanzania, the new grant will seek to improve animal health and livestock farmers' livelihoods through more comprehensive training, with the aim to train 100,000 producers by 2025.

Search for opportunities to increase aquaculture production in the area

Through this initiative, Zoetis will seek opportunities to accelerate and increase aquaculture production in Lake Victoria and Lake Volta, drawing on the expertise of Pharmaq (global leader in aquaculture vaccine development and innovation integrated into Zoetis) to understand the veterinary and productivity needs of small-scale fish farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Tilapia is one of the fastest growing sources of animal protein in emerging markets, so facilitating its geographic expansion and scale-up can have a significant and positive impact on sustainable diets and economic growth in the area.

Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the fastest developing areas in the world, is also home to some of the largest livestock populations on the planet and the highest density of impoverished herders. Livestock are an indispensable commodity for rural communities and therefore animal health is critical to achieving food security in areas with a very high incidence of animal and human diseases.

Throughout the five years of the program, Zoetis will build on the advances and main contributions of the initial initiative A.L.P.H.A. in order to create a business model and an animal health infrastructure that is viable in the long term for farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: Agronegocios