Development and Scaling of Sustainable Feeds for Resilient Aquatic Food Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (FASA)

On November 6–9, 2023, the Development and Scaling of Sustainable Feeds for Resilient Aquatic Food
Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (FASA) project held its most recent annual workshop at the Rockview Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria. Two days (November 7–8) were spent at the hotel in between two daylong field visits, one to a feed mill and fish farm in Abuja (November 6) and the other to the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) in Lagos (November 9).

WorldFish representatives attended the workshop as well as FASA partners, consultants and stakeholders, such as the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), The Natural Resources Development College (NRDC), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Includovate, NAGI Enterprise, The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Aller Aqua Zambia Limited, The Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) and Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR). The Norwegian ambassador to Nigeria officially opened the workshop. The objective was to bring together FASA partners to provide updates on the overall activities completed in Year 1 of the project as well as activities planned for Year 2 and tentatively Year 3 (the entire project runs from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2027 ) The revised implementation plan for 2024 and tentatively 2025 of the project was the main outcome of the workshop. Through discussions in each presentation section, participants had the opportunity to address questions and update challenges pertaining to the project’s activities. In each session, participants also helped generate new ideas and solutions, leading to new insights and approaches to problems.

Several activities were accomplished in the first year of the project. FASA partners completed scoping studies that provided information on the type, price and seasonality of local ingredients used in fish feeds produced in the project’s three focal countries: Zambia, Kenya and Nigeria. The laboratory in Zambia was upgraded with a complete recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) for use in experiments on the nutrient requirements of an improved strain of tilapia. A gender and social assessment was done using the Automated Directives Systems 205 (ADS 205) framework, with an emphasis on policies, cultural beliefs, gender roles, resource access and decision-making. Climate change and environmental assessments using life cycle assessment (LCA) methods highlighted the potential of the project to improve environmental benefits within the novel feeds landscape across the three focal countries. Then, workshops on theories of change was held in Zambia, Kenya and Nigeria to investigate the impact of using novel feed ingredients in fish feeds. In addition to providing updates on implementation activities in Year 1, project partners provided detailed workplans for 2024 and tentatively 2025. Among the activities planned are experiments on the nutrient requirements of improved strains of tilapia and African catfish using locally accessible ingredients. Other activities include conducting a digestibility experiment and biochemical analyses on ingredient samples obtained from each focal country, as well as creating an ingredient database. Finally, the project will submit the agreed upon implementation plan to donor for approval. The plan will be used to carry out the project on the ground in 2024 and tentatively 2025.