Although aquaculture is a popular enterprise providing employment for many thousands of West Africans, a number of factors have limited its growth. These include the lack of the requisite technical skills among entrepreneurs, and the lack of access to capital. But by far the most important factor is the unavailability of good quality, moderately priced feed.

Most small scale fish farmers use self compounded feed based on agricultural by-products, to save money. These include palm kernel cake, groundnut cake, millet or corn bran, wheat bran and soya bean meal. The larger fish farms use commercial, mostly imported extruded fish.

...Soon fish farmers in West Africa will be able to enjoy regular supply of moderately priced feed thanks to Olam\\\'s International’s $150 million integrated animal feed mill, breeding farms and hatchery project that is expected to start operations next year.

At full capacity, it will produce 600,000 metric tonnes of poultry and feed mill, making it by far the largest feed producer of feed in the West African sub-region.

Olam’s massive production target seems to be a realistic assessment of the capacity and requirements of the Nigeria and West African market. Interestingly, Olam will be using wheat bran, a by-product from its flour mills in Ghana and Nigeria, as raw material in the fish feed plants.

Source: Francis Ekow de Heer. Original article: TheFishSite