The UN Warns Africa Requires Immediate Expansion of Aquaculture to Meet Demand

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Africa needs to urgently expand its fish-farming sector to meet its food needs, the head of the UN’s fisheries division said Tuesday, even as its latest report found record production levels globally.

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Fish and seafood is now a $184-billion trade, according to the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), launched at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya.

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Fish-farming, or “aquaculture”, overtook traditional “capture” fishing as a source of food production in 2021 and has continued to grow — surpassing 100 million tonnes for the first time in 2024, the latest year for data.

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But Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world, with only 18 percent of its fish coming from farms, compared to around half elsewhere.

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Sub-Saharan Africa’s fish production will need to grow by 68 percent between now and 2050 to keep up with its rapidly growing population, the FAO said.

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“It’s an opportunity waiting to be exploited… but it’s whether the timing is sufficiently fast to catch up with that demand,” Manuel Barange, director of the FAO’s fisheries division, told AFP.

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“Aquaculture can actually be a game-changer,” he said. “If we manage to develop aquaculture in Africa, there’s a lot of opportunities.”

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But governments urgently need to create regulations and incentives to attract investors, Barange added.

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More than 700 different species of fish are raised for consumption on aquaculture farms around the world and the FAO argues it is a more predictable and sustainable approach than traditional fishing at sea.

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It is also more manageable in the face of climate change, which is causing rapid changes in the volumes and locations of ocean fish.

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Climate change is “a disruptor of everything that we do,” said Barange.

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More work is also needed to reduce over-fishing: the report found that only 62 percent of global fisheries were sustainably fished.

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The 11th edition of the Our Ocean Conference began in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Tuesday — its first time in Africa — bringing together politicians, NGOs, investors and innovators.

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Since its first edition in 2014, organisers boast that it has led to more than 2,900 commitments valued at over $169 billion, covering marine conservation, sustainable fisheries, climate adaptation, security and pollution reduction.

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AFP

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