Increasing fish farm profitability through aquaculture best management practice training in Egypt

Abstract

Egyptian aquaculture production has grown rapidly to over one million tons per year so that it now provides most of the countrys fish supply. However, Egyptian fish farmers have received little extension advice or training. An intervention starting in 2012 aimed to address this gap by providing best management practice (BMP) training for pondbased tilapia monoculture and tilapia-mullet polyculture fish farmers. A series of field-based training modules were developed and designed with the participation of leading fish farmers and delivered through private sector farmer-trainers to over 2400 fish farm owners and managers. This paper reports on the results of an impact assessment survey carried out in 2015 comparing fish farm performance, production and profitability in randomly selected farms where the manager had received and was applying the principles of BMP training (BMP) and farms where the manager had not received IEIDEAS project training (control). The results show that although the two groups were very similar in terms of general farm characteristics, BMP farms were more likely to practice tilapia-mullet polyculture than monoculture of tilapia."