Tilapia Culture

Tilapia Culture

1.1. Historical Review

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms,
including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic
plants, in freshwater, brackish-water and seawater
environments. Capture fisheries, on the other
hand, are the exploitation of aquatic organisms by
the public as a common property resource, with or
without appropriate licences. Aquaculture’s contribution to total global fisheries landings was
very low during 1950–1970, ranging from only
638,577 Mt (3.2%) in 1950 to 5.2% in 1970.
Global aquaculture production continued to grow
to 9.6% in 1980 and 16.3% in 1990. In the 1990s
and early 2000s, this production grew at an outstanding rate to reach an annual rate of 32.1% in
2000, 34% in 2001 and 35.2% in 2002 (Fig. 1.1).
The average annual compounded growth rate of
aquaculture production was 9% per year during
1970–2000, compared with only 1.3% for capture
fisheries (Tacon, 2003). Half of total global
aquaculture production in 2002 was finfish
(25,728,611 Mt).
Tilapia are freshwater fish belonging to the
family Cichlidae. They are native to Africa, but
were introduced into many tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world during the second half of the 20th century (Pillay, 1990). The introduction of tilapia into those areas was for:
(i) farming as food fish; (ii) recreational fishing;
(iii) aquatic weed control; and (iv) research
purposes. Tilapia have many attributes that make them an ideal candidate for aquaculture, especially in developing countries. These include:
1. Fast growth.
2. Tolerance to a wide range of environmental conditions (such as temperature, salinity, low dissolved
oxygen, etc.).
3. Resistance to stress and disease.
4. Ability to reproduce in captivity and short generation time.
5. Feeding on low trophic levels and acceptance of artificial feeds immediately after yolk-sac absorption.
Tilapia culture is believed to have originated some 4000 years ago, about 1000 years before carp culture was introduced into China (Balarin and Hatton, 1979). However, other than biblical references and illustrations from ancient Egyptian tombs, very little information is available on their culture during those early times. Current Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) aquaculture production statistics indicate that about 100 countries practise tilapia culture, since these countries reported tilapia production from aquaculture in
2002 (FAO, 2004). The global development of tilapia culture has passed through three distinctive
phases (Fig. 1.2): before 1970; from 1970 to 1990; and from 1990 to now. BEFORE 1970. The contribution of tilapia production to total global aquaculture production before 1970 was very minor, representing less than 1% of total production. For example, tilapia production in 1969 was only 24,633 Mt,
representing 0.76% of total aquaculture production (3,238,079 Mt). Very few countries practised

tilapia culture during that period. Only seven countries reported tilapia production in 1950, increasing to 12 countries in 1969. Taiwan, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Israel and Thailand were the major tilapia producers. The insignificant contribution of tilapia production during that period was mainly because aquaculture in general, and tilapia culture in particular, was not known as a food production system in most countries.
FROM 1970 TO 1990. Tilapia culture was gradually expanding worldwide during the period from 1970 to 1990. The number of countries practising tilapia culture increased significantly to reach 78 countries in 1990, compared to only 12 countries in 1969. However, tilapia production in many of those countries was very limited. According to FAO aquaculture production statistics, out of those 78 countries, 40 countries produced less than 100 Mt/year each. The production of farmed tilapia gradually increased to reach 383,654 Mt by 1990, representing 2.28% of total aquaculture production in 1990. During that period, the annual growth of tilapia production fluctuated between < 6% and > 28%, with an average of 14.2%.
FROM 1990 TO NOW. Tilapia culture has witnessed a huge expansion during the past decade. As a result, the number of countries practising tilapia culture has reached over 100, as mentioned earlier. The production of farmed tilapia has also increased more than 390% to jump from 383,654 Mt in 1990, representing 2.28% of total aquaculture production, to 1,505,804 Mt in 2002, representing 2.93% of total production. The average annual growth of tilapia production during that period approached 12.2%.

Fig. 1.1. Global fisheries and aquaculture production (1000 Mt) during 1950–2002.

Fig. 1.2. Global production (Mt) of tilapia from aquaculture and capture fisheries during 1950–2002.

1.2. Global Tilapia Production
1.2.1. Capture fisheries

Global landing of tilapia from capture fisheries increased progressively during the 1950s to the 1980s. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the landings were almost stable, fluctuating around 585,000–680,000 Mt/year (Fig. 1.2). Africa is by far the most important tilapia producer from capture fisheries, where it contributed about 70% of global landing in 2002, followed by Asia (18%), North America (9%) and South America (3%) (Figs 1.3 and 1.4). Therefore, it is no surprise that, among the world’s top ten tilapia producers from capture fisheries, six are African countries. In addition, Egypt and Uganda, the first and second largest world tilapia producers, landed over 138,000 and 98,000 Mt in 2002, representing 20% and 14% of global landings (Fig. 1.5). The top ten producers included three Asian countries (Thailand, the Philippines and Sri Lanka) and one North American country (Mexico). Among all tilapia species, Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is the most important identified species in capture fisheries. In 2002, the production of that species approached 253,871 Mt, representing 37% of total production. Other identified species include Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus), blue tilapia (Oreochromis aureus), jaguar guapote (Parachromis managuensis) and mango (Galilee) tilapia (Sarotherodon galilaeus). However, most tilapia catches are not identified. For example, 59% of the catch in 2002 was reported under ‘unidentified’ cichlids, ‘mouthbrooding’ cichlids and ‘unidentified’ tilapias.

Fig. 1.3. Tilapia capture (Mt) by region during 1950–2002.

 1.2.2. Aquaculture

As pointed out earlier, the production of farmed tilapia increased from 28,260 Mt in 1970 to 1,505,804 Mt in 2002. However, these values may

Fig. 1.4. Tilapia production from capture fisheries (Mt, %) by region in 2002.

Fig. 1.5. Top ten producers of tilapia from capture fisheries (Mt, %) in 2002.

be much less than the actual amounts produced. The under-reporting of tilapia production can be attributed to the following:
1. The reproductive characteristics of tilapia. The simple, frequent and asynchronous reproduction of tilapia makes the estimate of total production of these fish almost impossible.
2. The poor management of evaluating and utilizing tilapia. The large amounts consumed by tilapia farmers’ families and the amounts that are locally marketed informally may make production statistics incorrect and unreliable. For example, it has been reported that about 20% of aquaculture production in rural China is consumed by farmers’ families. The global production of farmed tilapia may, therefore, be higher than the officially reported quantities. The global production trends of farmed tilapia can be divided into two distinctive phases:
● During the 1950s to 1970s tilapia culture grew at a relatively slow rate, where farmed tilapia production was much lower than that of capture fisheries (Fig. 1.2).
● In the 1980s to 1990s, tilapia culture expanded at a much wider and more rapid rate, where the gap between tilapia landings from capture fisheries and aquaculture continued to narrow, until the production of farmed tilapia exceeded the landings from capture fisheries in 1993 (Fig. 1.2). Since then, tilapia culture has been growing at a very high rate, while tilapia landings from capture fisheries are about stable. Since tilapia can tolerate a wide range of water salinity, they are currently farmed in freshwater, brackish-water and even seawater environments, but freshwater tilapia aquaculture dominates. The production of tilapia from freshwater systems reached 1,312,776 Mt in 2002, representing 87.2% of total farmed tilapia production.
The value of farmed tilapia has also witnessed a great increase during the past two decades. The value increased from about US$154 million in 1984 to US$1800.7 million in 2002. As expected, the value of Nile tilapia represented between 60 and > 70% of the total market value of farmed tilapia during the past decade (Fig. 1.6).