Reading Manual for the MADE Reports
Marine Aquaculture Development in Egypt
Introduction:-
The food production sectors are strategic and crucial for the stability of a net food importer country as Egypt, given the steady demographic growth, which could lead to a population overcoming 90 million inhabitants by 2015. At this trend the population could be between 104 and 115 million by 2031. In this context the fish products are an essential factor of the national fish consumption, making it vulnerable to external factors (currency fluctuations).
In the past years the Agriculture National Strategy has been oriented at modernizing the whole agriculture sector in Egypt, achieving food security and improving the standard of living of population through the efficient use of development resources,. The objectives of the strategy included among others increasing of productivity, eliminating bottlenecks for financing, reducing the deficit of some major basic food products and increasing the competitiveness of agricultural products in local and international markets (Sustainable Agricultural Development Strategy towards 2030).
The evolution of the socio-economic and political scenario of Egypt demands for defining new strategies and the breakdown it according to the state and opportunities of the different subsectors, starting from aquaculture.
If the production of low cost freshwater fish has been the priority in the last decades, nowadays the national public and private actors are paying more and more attention to the marine aquaculture that has demonstrated to have high potential for income generation, creation of employments, and for obtaining hard currency.
The demand and the market prices for high value products such as sea bass or sea bream clearly open great opportunities for developing intensive productions competitive on the international markets and impacting at the national level.
For these reasons the MADE project aims at supporting the marine aquaculture sectors trough technology transfer, industrial partnerships, strengthening the capacity of the GAFRD to boost the private sector with extension services and by developing clear strategies and implementation tools.
Thus a team of experts has been set up by the international organization ‘CIHEAM IAM BARI’ and in coordination with the GAFRD/MADE staff, has been implementing an action of technical assistance since January 2013. This action has lead to the realization of reports representing the strategies and implementing tools for the development of Marine Aquaculture sector in Egypt, paying great attention to the productive phases and technologies.
All the reports composing the strategy have been conceived as standalone documents, so that every stakeholder (authorities, investors, aquaculture farmers, etc) can directly focus on its area of interest, but a complete scenario and the overall sector strategy emerges only from a transversal lecture of all of them. All these documents are to be distributes, as draft, to the participants of the national conference while the final version will be available on the website of the project.
***for more pleased visit the library***
ساحة النقاش