Hatcheries could be sorted according to affiliations into governmental and private sectors, and could be also sorted according to environments into freshwater and marine hatcheries as illustrated in the following Table.

Hatchery produced seeds as sorted into governmental, private, freshwater and marine water during 2008 and 2009.

In the present, there are large numbers of freshwater fish hatcheries. Out of which, several hatcheries belong to the government while the majority belong to the private sector. The mode of operation varies among the affiliations of existing hatcheries. While tilapia is the only target species in private sector hatcheries, all carp fry are only produced in governmental hatcheries. This is because most of carp fry are used in national programs supported by the government. These programs are the integrated rice-fish culture where the fry of common carp are provided at no cost to rice farmers and the use of grass carp fingerlings in the biological control of aquatic plants in River Nile and canals.

Private hatcheries as most private operation are production and market driven. According to GAFRD statistics, about 78% of tilapia fingerlings have been produced in private hatcheries during 2008 and 2009.  The backward calculations suggest that the number of tilapia fingerlings used to produce about 400,000 tons of marketable tilapia in 2009 cannot be 93 million fingerlings. The realistic numbers should be several folds of recorded one. The reason of recording difference could be related to licensing procedures whereas non-licensed hatcheries could contribute to the fry production of tilapia. Also, many farms produce their own requirements of tilapia fingerlings using the farm facility and not looked at as hatcheries.

In regard to the production of marine fry for fin fish and marine shrimp post larvae, numbers produced are although increasing are still very modest with a total of 38.7 million of fry and post larvae of fin fish and shrimp respectively. It is anticipated that existing marine hatcheries are capable to enhance their productivity towards its production capacity whenever marine aquaculture develops further.

 Amany Esmaeil