Improved fish welfare not only leads to happier, healthier fish – but to a better product for consumers and greater financial returns for farmers.
Fish welfare represents one of those rare win-win situations where productivity gains not only improve the lives of the fish being farmed, but also of those rearing them.
But there’s no denying there’s still plenty of work to do.
In many countries, fish welfare isn’t even considered. That’s why FAI runs projects and partners with organisations like ours across the globe to help farmers better understand and implement practices that improve fish welfare. And they’ve added Egypt to the list!
Wasseem Emam, our Founder, Director and Lead Researcher explains: “Research carried out last year revealed tilapia welfare is completely unheard of in Egypt,” “This is particularly concerning given the scale at which these fish are farmed, Egypt being among the top five or six global producers of fin fish.”
FAI is working with us to launch the Tilapia Welfare Project in Egypt. Using FAI’s Tilapia Welfare App, we’re providing bespoke online training to educate tilapia farmers on welfare issues. MURILO QUINTILIANOand Sara Barrento, FAI’s COO and aquaculture project manager, are currently in the country with our team. They’re visiting fish farms, promoting the case for tilapia welfare and identifying new ways to support our work.
We’ve already achieved our initial goal of providing a baseline map of production practices and identifying low points of welfare. Our new partnership will focus on implementing welfare improvements across the production cycle of the Egyptian tilapia farming sector.
Wasseem says:
“We expect to benefit from FAI’s expertise in this area and considerable knowledge from carrying out similar work in other countries. Brazil [where FAI has worked for a long time] is well-regarded within the global tilapia farming community and Egyptian tilapia farmers will be keen to learn from FAI’s experiences there as well as those in Thailand, China and other countries.”
The purpose of our international Tilapia Welfare Project is to positively affect the welfare of the largest possible number of fish. To achieve this, we need to be working across the world in countries where tilapia is produced at scale – countries just like Egypt. It’s a good place for us to be carrying out our fish welfare work and reinforces the importance of having a global outlook.
FAI values our world- leading aquaculture research expertise and network of practitioners across the Egyptian tilapia value chain. Together, we can partner with producers, vets, academics and processors to create an even stronger tilapia industry with welfare at its centre.
We are very excited about this opportunity to identify and drive improvements across major areas of the tilapia production cycle that can yield benefits to farmer profits and fish wellbeing.
To find out more about FAI’s work in aquaculture welfare, visit https://www.faifarms.com/driving-improvements-for-aquaculture-welfare/.
