Blue Economy Challenge - Malaysia

Raw household data from a 2013 survey, focusing on fishing and other livelihoods.

There is increasing awareness that integrating gender into development frameworks is critical for effective implementation of development strategies. In working to alleviate rural poverty, the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) recognizes that “business as usual” gender integration approaches will not deliver lasting and widespread improvements in agricultural productivity, poverty reduction and food security. In response, AAS operationalized a gender transformative approach.

Working with fishing communities in Barotse and Lake Chilwa, and other partners, the project will analyze fish value chains, including the differing roles of men and women, to understand how losses occur in fish volume, nutrient content, and economic value. The research team will then develop and pilot interventions to reduce these losses, while also addressing issues connected to gender and power. These interventions will include improved processing methods, such as parboiling, solar drying, and kilning.

Growth and water quality data collected systematically with farmers cultivating indigenous tilapia in earthen ponds in rural Zambia is non-existent. The lack of data is due in part because of inadequate human and financial resources but also the approach that many organizations use to implement and monitor and evaluate aquaculture activities in rural areas.

Since the 1980’s, tilapia aquaculture has expanded rapidly in Egypt, making it now Africa’s largest tilapia producer and the third largest in the world. In recent years, genetically improved Nile tilapia strains contributed important catalysts in these advancements. Providing superior growth rates and more efficient feed conversion, the release of the Abbassa strain in 2013 has since triggered an accelerated growth in national production. Despite this, concerns have been voiced over current trajectories of market development.

Egyptian aquaculture production has grown rapidly to over one million tons per year so that it now provides most of the country's fish supply.However, Egyptian fish farmers have received little extension advice or training. An intervention starting in 2012 aimed to address this gap by providing best management practice (BMP) training for pond based tilapia monoculture and tilapia-mullet polyculture fish farmers.

This study was carried out in order to understand the technical and economic characteristics of different Egyptian Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) hatchery systems. Hatchery operators at fifty tilapia hatcheries in four governorates were interviewed and four focus group discussions were held with 61 participants in March 2012.

Expansion of Egypt’s aquaculture industry has been matched by the development of a large number of tilapia hatcheries all producing sex-reversed all-male fry and fingerlings. In order to map the fish seed value chain in Egypt, operators of fifty tilapia hatcheries in four governorates (Kafr el-Sheikh, Behera, Sharkia and Fayoum) were interviewed. Tilapia hatcheries use a range of technologies, from simple hapa-based systems in open ponds to heated, greenhouse-covered, tanks systems to advance and lengthen the spawning season.

Between November 2016 and December 2017, WorldFish surveyed the Auki fish market, in Malaita Province, Solomon Islands. The objectives of the survey were to: (i) document the species, volumes and values of fish sold at Auki market, and the fishing grounds where this fish was caught; (ii) document and describe the fisheries that supply the biggest market in Malaita Province; and (iii) support the Ministry of Fisheries & Marine Resources (MFMR) in establishing a baseline of the fisheries in Malaita.