FEATURE
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Aquafeed initiative to boost East African aquaculture market by Shem Oirere, Journalist
ountries in East Africa are experiencing a surge in demand for fish amid declining local production volumes hence creating opportunities for farmed fish ventures that in turn require investment in production of quality fish feeds in the short, medium and long term. Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi continue to record deficits in locally produced fish forcing the countries to rely on imports either among themselves or from overseas markets such as China, Netherlands, Germany and Belgium to meet the domestic supply needs. But more importantly these countries have either jointly or separately launched initiatives to promote fish farming to boost the unexploited fish farming potential and diminishing fresh water and marine fish resources creating more investment opportunities for private sector fish feeds producers in a region where consistency and quality of the products remains a major challenge. Although production of farmed fish in Kenya dropped to 14,952 tonnes in 2016 down from the 18,656 tonnes recorded in 2015, a public private partnership between Kenya and the Netherlands has resulted in the launch of the first aqua feed manufacturing plant in the country’s capital Nairobi, raising the hopes of current and potential fish farmers of getting consistent supply of quality fish feeds. The new 5,000-ton capacity extruded floating fish feed factory that was opened last year has been developed by Kenyan-based Unga Holdings Ltd, which is a holding company with majority stake in enterprises engaged in the production and marketing of human nutrition, animal nutrition and animal health products, in partnership with US-based Seaboard Corporation. It is the first facility of such level of quality in East Africa that will produce the much needed high-quality floating fish feeds, the single most important impediment to the growth of the aquaculture (fish farming) sector in the region according to Larive International, which partnered with Lattice Consulting in providing consultancy in the development of the project. The fish feed venture was supported by FoodTechAfrica, a Dutch public private partnership that is striving to improve food security in East Africa through initiating of fully integrated fish farming value chain in the region. Other partners include Dutch’s Ottevanger Milling Engineers and Almex Extrusion, which designed and manufactured the fish feed plant’s state-of-the-art equipment, Nutreco, the global animal feed solutions provider, which has already signed a commercial deal with Unga Group Plc for provision of expertise on feed formulation, production and marketing and finally the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs that is providing cofinancing to FoodTechAfrica initiatives.
“We have never been in the fish feed business. We are the very best of what we do but we have never done fish feed, but FoodTechAfrica gave us an opportunity to partner with people who are experts in what they do,” said Nicholas Hutchinson, Managing Director at Unga Holdings Limited, during the opening of the factory. The new fish feed factory is expected to address the biggest question in the minds of many fish farmers in Kenya and the rest of East Africa. “The biggest question from all fish farmers is where will we get our feed from?” said Winnie Ouko, a director at Lattice Consulting. “What FoodTechAfrica brings to us is high class Dutch technology and skills to the local market, upping production, upping knowledge and upping even aspiration,” she said. The opening of the fish feed factory in Nairobi came at a time when the quality of feeds available in the market was becoming a concern among fish farmers and consumers and also when governments in East Africa had announced higher taxes for imported feeds. The governments have also imposed higher taxes on imported fish to encourage growth of the huge fishing industry potential in the region. Currently, the East African countries under the East African Community, a regional intergovernmental organisation of six Partner States, comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, charges an import duty of 20 percent on all imported fish feed from outside the region as the governments seek to encourage local feed manufacturing. However, the FoodTechAfrica initiative is giving priority to encouraging governments in East Africa to zero rate fish feed imports because the tax “is presently a constraint in the absence of locally produced high quality started and grow-out feeds.” Before the commissioning of the Unga Holdings Ltd’s new fish feed processing line, fish farmers in the region relied on imports and supplies from Uganda-based private family-run Ugachick Poultry Breeders, which launched its formulated sinking and floating pellet fish feeds production in 1994 to support the landlocked country’s aquaculture industry. The company says its fish feed, which floats on the water surface without dissolution for 3-12 hours, has a laboratory and a fish farming site to do biological and chemical testing of its feed and the raw materials. However, Ugachick says just like in the other East African countries, Uganda is struggling with the issue of access to quality fish feeds by fish farmers because of the difficulties in obtaining safe and economical feed ingredients. For example, Ugachik says access to silver fish (mukene), a key protein source and soybean “are becoming expensive and the price fluctuates widely.” “Soybean is increasingly scarce and the export of wheat biproducts pollard has made this important ingredient expensive and scarce,” said Ugachick in one of its previous reports.
18 | February 2018 - International Aquafeed