Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"

Farm made feeds for Tilapia aquaculture in Uganda

Supervisors: Andreas Graber (ZHAW), Margaret Aanyu (ARDC)
Students: Marco Widmer & Christian Carpaij (ZHAW)

Background
Nile Tilapia is a prominent fish species in global aquaculture, and in Uganda, it is the main farmed fish species. Farmers in Uganda farm fish in order to improve nutrition and generate income. About 70% of the fish farmers are small holder farmers with about 80% of the rural communities relying on fish as the main protein source. As prices for commercial fish feeds are on the rise, many farmers in rural Uganda had to resort to unprocessed farm by-products, resulting in a decrease of fish production and leading to poor nutrition. Although a lot of research is done on aquaculture, there is still a lack of cost-effective and efficient feeds for the semi-intensive production of Nile tilapia. The National Fisheries Resource Research Institute of Uganda works on these topics. One of the most promising resources for new fish feeds are by-products of agriculture, because they are available at low cost and often unused. The Rector’s conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences supports a research project called VeggieFish between ZHAW and the National Fisheries Institute of Uganda that addresses these problems 1.

Objective
In the frame of this University Exchange, two students of ZHAW in Waedenswil, Switzerland travel to Uganda to work on their bachelor thesis. They evaluate the potential of locally available feedstuffs by formulating fish feeds and test them in feeding experiments, both in ponds and aquaria. This parallel setup allows to test the effectiveness of the feeds under real production conditions, as well as to determine the digestibility of the feeds by analyzing the fish faeces. The results should lead towards improvement of aquaculture productivity and profitability in Uganda. Aquaculture indices to determine include: growth rate, survival, Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR), cost effectiveness, digestibility, and effect on body composition (meat quality). The results of the feeding trials will be presented to the ARDC staff, students and interested farmers.

Project Duration
Stay in Uganda: July 15 2010 – September 30 2010, report November 2010

Contact
Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)
Institute for Natural Resources Sciences (IUNR)
Gruental, P.O. Box, CH-8820 Waedenswil, www.iunr.zhaw.ch
Andreas Graber, M.Sc. Environmental Sciences, andreas.graber@zhaw.ch, phone +41 58 934 59 28

National Fisheries Resources Research Institute
Aquaculture Research and Development Center (ARDC)
P.O. Box 530, Kajjansi (Kampala), Uganda, www.firi.go.ug
Margaret Aanyu, M.Sc. Aquaculture, mergieaanyu@yahoo.com

1 see www.kfh.ch/dc search KFH-Projects for “Graber”

Foto1: Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus male (source: Graber, ZHAW) - Nile tilapia are a major source of protein for rural communities in Uganda

Foto2: Tilapia ponds at Source of the Nile fish farm in Jinja (source: Graber, ZHAW).
Fish farmers in Uganda use shallow earthen ponds to grow tilapia and catfish