Guinea: Aquaculture fish feed sector support

Project background

Twenty years ago, Guinea embarked on extensive continental fish culture integrated into farms. This concept became a national success, even beyond national borders. This dynamic has generated two strong points: a socio-professional environment that already has skills in fish farming and  an existing network of support and assistance for fish farmers from government agencies or corresponding projects.

Currently, a central question for the intensification of aquaculture is the local production and availability of fish feed. This input is one of the main levers for raising the level of intensification. COFAD has been commissioned by the PROBLUE program of the World Bank for the preparation of essential steps of a systematic approach to the solution of this issue.

Objectives

The specific objective of the study is to address the current questions on the availability of agricultural products and by-products in sufficient quantity and quality for the development of semi-intensive aquaculture under favorable technical and economic production conditions.

Having identified the different agricultural products and by-products currently used by fish farmers in Guinea to feed fish and the factors influencing their use, the objective of the study is as follows:

• to make an inventory of the agricultural products and by-products available in Guinea that can be used as ingredients of a basic fish feed for semi-intensive aquaculture
• to define the composition and formulation of these feeds for semi-intensive farming
• to conduct an analysis of feed mills (industrial and artisanal pilots) - based on an estimate of the current and future demand for fish feed in five years, by providing the technical and economic analysis elements for the operationalisation of these production units

Activities

• Analysis of production systems and financial capacity assessment
• Cross-inventory of agricultural products and by-products available in Guinea that are of interest for the feeding of African continental fish farming
• Production characteristics of agricultural products and by-products of interest for fish nutrition in Guinea
• Characterisation and recommendations for good storage and preservation practices
• Determination of the location of pilot fish feed manufacturing units
• Delivery price by region and delivery price of raw materials
• Search for animal protein sources
• Evaluation of technical coefficients of transformation and ratios
• Detailed analysis and nutrition value analysis of selected ingredients
• Typology of fish feed formulations
• Food shape determination and selection
• Titration of foods by species and size (nutrition characteristics)
• Feed formulation by species and size
• Calculation of raw material cost per feed formulation and per species
• Sizing of current and future five-year fish feed demand
• Determination of the equipment of the fish feed manufacturing line
• Economic forecast for the feed mills
• Technical guidelines for the commissioning of feed mills
• Delivery of final report and deliverables