Fish feeds and feed management practices in the Kenyan aquaculture sector: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Feeds and feed management practices are key to the development of the aquaculture sector. To achieve high levels of aquaculture production, fish farmers need nutritionally adequate and cost-effective feeds, which are coupled with good feed management practices. Access to high quality and cost-effective feeds is one of the prerequisites to successful fish farming. This paper reviews the current status of the Kenyan fish feed industry and feed management practices. The review includes constraints and opportunities in fish feeds from a farmer’s perspective. The review shows that the fish feed industry has been boosted by the development of fish feed standards, which has ensured access to high-quality fish feeds by all farmers. Feed management practices considerably impact on the economic performance in fish production. Thus, adopting appropriate feed management technologies and feeding strategies is instrumental in maximizing aquaculture productivity. Some of the major challenges faced by fish farmers in the feed sector including limited access to finance, lack of appropriate technical innovations, limited knowledge in feed formulation and processing and poor feed handling and storage are discussed. These challenges pose limitation in investment opportunities for a viable and sustainable fish feed processing and manufacturing to meet the rising demand occasioned by increased demand for fish food in Kenya. There is a huge potential to develop public-private partnerships with farmer groups to improve access to training and information dissemination on feeds availability and quality. Training fish farmers on feed formulation using locally available feed ingredients provide an opportunity to reduce feed costs, increase feeding efficiency and improve profitability. This paper reviews the current status of the Kenyan fish feed industry and feed management practices including constraints and opportunities from a farmer’s perspective.

Economic feasibility of fish cage culture in Lake Victoria, Kenya

“…The current study found the highest variable cost to be the cost of feed, taking more than 50% of the total cost. These findings relate to previous findings that reported that the cost of feeds takes more than half of the total cost of production in fish farming (Cheng et al., 2010; Munguti, Odame, et al., 2021; Petersen et al., 2014). The findings imply that the cost of fish feeds needs to be reduced in order to make fish cage culture more profitable to the farmer.…”

“…Input–output analysis is used for consistent forecasting, feasibility tests and sensitivity analysis to determine how the output variables are affected based on changes in other variables which are the input variables (Chong & Lizarondo, 1981; Miernyk, 2020). In aquaculture, production output is determined by, among other factors, the overall management practices and the costs incurred during the production process (Munguti, Odame, et al., 2021; Naylor et al., 2021; Obiero et al., 2019). Multiple regression analysis was done to assess the input–output relationship which is the relationship between the costs of inputs in fish cage farming and the revenue from sale of fish, given that the inputs and output were both calculated monetarily, that is, the inputs were calculated in terms of costs, and the output was calculated in terms of revenue from fish sales.…”

Stress Tolerance of African Catfish (Clarias gariepinus, Burchell, 1822) Larvae Fed on Spirulina platensis or Eisenia fetida in Partial Replacement of Caridina nilotica in Formulated Diets

“…Spirulina platensis containing diets had higher total mortalities (Figure 1a and 1b), stress indices (Table 3) and shorter time for half the number of C. gariepinus larvae exposed to ammonia concentrations to die (Table 2) compared to E. fetida diets. These results could be attributed to low lipids (Table 1) and energy reserve, PUFA alteration before (sun drying) and during diet formulation, compromised digestive physiology, limited availability of bioactive and nutrients due to variable digestibility and assimilation of plant and animal protein in the larvae gastrointestinal tract (Verreth et al, 1992;Munguti et al, 2021). This observation does not conform to earlier reports that S. platensis alleviates toxic effects in C. gariepinus through antioxidant activities (Sayed & Authman, 2018).…”

Production and economics of Gangetic mystus (Mystus cavasius) farming under different feed restriction periods in cages of floodplain ecosystem

“…Using proper stocking densities and feeding procedures are two of the cornerstones to sustainability in aquaculture operations (Abd El-Hack et al 2022;Hossain et al 2022). A shortage of nutritionally acceptable and lowcost feeding has long been a hurdle to the fruitful exercise of cage fish rearing in many developing countries (Otubusin 1987;Umaru et al 2016;Munguti et al 2021). Feed represents the most expensive cost item in aquaculture production and contributes 40 -70% of the variable cost depending on intensity (Gandotra et al 2015;Obirikorang et al 2015).…”