Kampala — THE major obstacle to the establishment of an aquaculture industry in Uganda is the lack of local, high-quality fish feed. This was revealed by researchers at the Uganda Fisheries Resources Research Institute, Kajjansi.

Presenting a paper on Biotechnology Research and Development in Fisheries organised by the National Council for Science and Technology, Dr. Justus Rutayisire said: "Fish require a top-quality, nutritionally complete and balanced diet to grow rapidly and remain healthy. Local feed production is critical to the overall success and sustainability of an aquaculture industry in Uganda."

He noted that the natural catch from the country's lakes and rivers had been threatened by increased pollution and unsustainable fishing practices and called for a conversion to fish farming.

He, however, noted that the cost of feed and seed had become too expensive. "This discourages farmers from practising fish farming," he said.

As a result, most fish farmers use kitchen wastes like wheat bran, groundnut cake, and rice bran to feed the fish.

Some of the feeds are animal based while others are plant based. They include: fish meal, blood meal, shrimp meal, maize, soya bean meal and cotton seed meal.

"Although these materials are cheap and available throughout the year, they are not good for the fish because they affect yields, thus limiting profits," he said.

He said fish feed must either be floating or sinking and must contain different percentages of protein ratios depending on the age and size of the fish.

With good management, one fish requires 2kg of feed to attain 1kg of weight. The cost of producing a 1kg fish is not less than shs2,400. when other costs such as management and transport are included, it could rise to over shs2,800 a kilogram.

Fish feed is one of the major inputs in aquaculture production and part of the fundamental challenges facing the development and growth of aquaculture in Africa. There is, therefore, need to encourage fish farmers to make use of ideal pond fertilisation programmes, non-conventional feed resources, feed stuff processing, refinement and formulations that recognises the requirements of the various species and their stages.

"Fish farmers in Uganda have something new to smile about. Ugachick has imported a fish feed processing machine. By June the processing shall have started," Rutayisire said.

Good nutrition in animal production systems is essential to produce a healthy and high quality product.

"Nutrition is critical because feed represents 40-50% of the production costs.

Prices of feeds have been going up because the catch for wild fish is going down world over," he said.