Getting The Basics Of Tilapia Farming Right

Asian small-scale tilapia growers long ago learnt the secrets of successful greenwater fish farming. To be more productive, their Southern African counterparts need to follow the same principles.

- Nicholas James

Having recently returned from rural Zambia, where I saw a number of small-scale, village level tilapia projects, I can only assume that funding and development agencies have learnt little over the past 30 years.

I did not see a single farm that was any improvement on the failed projects of the 1960s. Most were operating at the level of poorly managed wild fisheries, and the contrast with Asian fish farms was dramatic and depressing.

SIZE MATTERS

The first problem is pond size. Ponds of 100m² to 300m² are excavated and expected to produce significant quantities of tilapia. This is simply not going to happen. A pond must have a surface area of at least 1 250m² to be productive. A smaller one will suffer wide fluctuations in temperature and water quality, and the fish will be stunted.