Egyptian tilapia protection project trains producers to meet export market standards

A recently launched fish welfare project for small-scale tilapia producers in Egypt aims to reduce fish mortality rates by up to 10%, lower production costs and ensure products meet the standards of major export markets.

The Egypt Tilapia Welfare project, led by Ethical Seafood Research (ESR), based in Glasgow, Scotland, with support from FAI Farms, based in Oxford, England, aims to improve the production practices of small-scale Egyptian tilapia farmers.

The goal is to ensure farmers have the resources they need to “better care for their fish, monitor water quality and reduce unnecessary stressors such as handling procedures, thereby improving the condition of harvested fish,” said Wasseem Emam, ESR’s founder, director and head of research. “In farms that have adopted more welfare-friendly practices in other countries, we have seen mortality reductions of up to 10%, which is no small feat.”

Emam said Egyptian farmers and fish farmers previously viewed animal welfare as “a luxury and something that does not apply to regions where food security is a pressing issue.”

“However, we have tried to highlight that it is quite the opposite and that in fact animal welfare in general, and fish welfare in particular, can be a central element of a healthy, productive and sustainable food system,” he said.

Emam said the issue is urgent as major international seafood export markets are tightening the standards they demand for food production, increasing the need for Egypt’s fledgling aquaculture industry to address issues such as animal welfare. Rabobank estimates that Egyptian tilapia production will increase by 5.2% in 2024.

“One of the impacts of the lack of a social protection program has been the inability to export aquatic products to European and other industrialized markets where high ethical standards of food production are required,” Emam told SeafoodSource.

According to the ESR, the relative lack of respect for fish welfare has led to the harvesting stage becoming the weakest point in the Egyptian tilapia farming value chain “because fish are (often) crammed together for several hours, during which time water quality deteriorates rapidly.”

“The fish are then removed from the water and left to suffocate on ice, which is not a form of humane slaughter and is not recognised as such by the World Organisation for Animal Health,” Emam said.

To address these issues, the project aims to…