Fish farming: a goldfish or red herring?

By Leslie Ter Moshuizen |17 May 2024 | 9:00 am

Leslie Ter Morshuizen explains the potential for aquaculture in South Africa.

Leslie Ter Morshuizen tending fingerlings in an aquaponics greenhouse.Photo: Supplied

You have heard that aquaculture is growing rapidly across the world and you wonder if this represents an investment opportunity on your farm. Let’s unpack the essence from a South African perspective.

Trout were imported into South Africa in the late 1890s to stock in rivers for angling purposes.

READ Tilapia farming: Untapped SA market holds opportunity for growth

Shortly afterwards, the state erected hatcheries at strategic locations in the then Cape Province, Natal and Transvaal to produce fingerlings locally for the further stocking of rivers.

This was the beginning of the aquaculture industry in South Africa, which for many decades was state driven and focused exclusively on the production of freshwater sport fish.

A tank of tilapia fingerlings on an intensive fish farm Photo: Supplied

Since the 1980s, however, there has been increasing interest in the production of food fish, both for food security and as a commercial investment.

There are currently only a few commercial-scale fish farms active in the country, but there are an increasing number of semi-commercial installations being run by operators who are refining their grasp on the technology or developing markets with the view to expand in time.

Naturally this begs the question: Why aren’t there more commercial-scale fish farms in South Africa?

I believe there are several reasons for this, including the following:

•

South Africa had plentiful stocks of many different species of marine fish that were landed at prices well below the cost of farming them, stunting the development of the marine fish farming sector. Poor management of these stocks caused many to collapse and the price has risen such that it is now

economically viable to rear marine fish in captivity, and investment in this

sector is now occurring.

•

Due to the abundance of delicious marine fish, consumers shied away from eating freshwater fish, which are at times regarded as being of inferior taste quality. This prevented the industry from growing, other than for the production of trout, which is a high-value species and was able to compete with marine fish. As the wild fish stocks shrank and freshwater fish (such as tilapia and pangasius) started being imported, we have seen the average consumer now accepting freshwater fish, and these species can be purchased in local supermarkets. Furthermore, prices have grown to the point where they can be produced locally.

•

Most of the country is cool temperate, with cold winters and hot summers. Fish grow and utilise their feed most efficiently within a narrow temperature range. Thus, cold water species such as trout struggle in summer, and warm-water species, including tilapia, stop growing in winter. Unless the farmer can find a microclimate suited to farming the species of their choice, they are obliged to cultivate their crop in an intensive system with temperature control. Such systems are both capital and skills-intensive, which significantly increases the upfront investment that is required to start a fish farm. However, the technology has been refined over the decades of use to the point where trout, tilapia and catfish can be produced cost effectively under intensive-farming conditions that allow for temperature control throughout the year.

•

Intensive fish farms are reliant on a stable electrical supply. The need for a completely reliable backup power system along with the expense of running generators (or batteries) during load-shedding adds to the cost of doing business.

•

As the cost of solar comes down, farmers are now investing in solar backup to the farms, with generators as an emergency support only, reducing risk and operating expenses.

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Historically, the state refusal to allow Nile tilapia to be imported and farmed in the country suffocated the tilapia sector, and the monopoly held by one or two feed producers were also hurdles, but both of these hindrances have largely been overcome.

So where to from here? Is fish farming a worthwhile investment in South Africa or not?

While each situation needs to be considered carefully on its own merits, there are some general principles that apply when addressing this question, these being:

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Trout is in high demand and enjoys an attractive market price.

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Tilapia is marginal due to low-priced imports and must be supplied to niche markets to be economically viable.

•

Catfish is difficult to market unless value addition is done, but then becomes very interesting.

•

Ornamental fish farming is lucrative but the market size is limited.

•

Adding aquaponics to any of these options improves the profitability of the business.

•

Marine fish farming is technically challenging and can only be adopted at an industrial scale. If I was investing in a fish farm, it would be a trout aquaponics system.

Leslie Ter Morshuizen designs and builds fish farms across sub-Saharan Africa, trains farmers to manage them optimally and has run his own operations.