AN ANALYTICAL ECONOMIC STUDY ON THE PRODUCTION

OF TILAPIA IN EGYPT

Nssr M. El-Kazaz1; Saber M. Mohamed2;

Ahmed M.A. Elbana1 and Tharwat I. Dawood3

1Agriculture Economics Faculty of Agriculture, Ala Zhar University.

2National Institute of Oceanographic & Fisheries (NIOF), Alexandria.

3Central Laboratory for Aquaculture Research.

Abstract

Tilapia is characterized by its ability to cultivate it in changing environmental conditions and in different ways and in small or large areas of water, and also facilitates industrial hatching and thus easy access to the fry. Tilapia is important in economic and health terms as it is a cheap food source for animal protein in low-income countries or poor countries. It is also of great health importance especially for patients with heart disease and also to prevent heart disease. Tilapia fish contributes significantly to Egypt’s total fish production, with an estimated production of 134.1 thousand tons, representing 33.1% of the total Egyptian fish production in 1995, while the production capacity is 989.6 thousand tons, which represents about 65% of the total Egyptian fishery in 2015. There are two sources of production of tilapia. The first source is the catch from the Nile and the inland lakes, while the second source is tilapia culture. As a result of the fishery statistics, it was found that the production of the northern lakes, namely Manzala Lake, Burlus, Adco and Mariout, contributed an estimated production rate of 16.6% with an average production of 73.1 thousand tons.

Where the lake is the first production of Al Burlus Lake
production by 7.1%. While Manzala Lake occupies the second place by 6.6%, while the production of Nile fisheries and its branches have shown their contribution by 6.2% for the inland lakes of Lake Qaroun, Al Rayyan and Lake Nasser, they contributed where Lake Nasser alone contributed about 4% and the rest of the lake fisheries in the production of tilapia, during the study period (1995 – 2015). While aquaculture contributed about 73% to an average production of 322 thousand tons.

The growing decline in fish production, especially tilapia, from natural sources in Egypt was observed due to the increasing pollution of natural fishing, the use of fishing methods and the failure to maintain the timing of fishing. This led to the fishing of fish and fish fishes, Sharp decline in fish production from natural sources, and as compensation for the lack of fish production, especially tilapia, from capture fisheries, particularly fish farming, especially tilapia culture,

However, there were other challenges facing the expansion of fish farming. The continuous and high increase in the prices of fish feed – the spread of diseases due to non-observance of the quality followers in the production and also not follow the instructions of biosecurity.

Therefore, the interest in re-development of the lakes and the Nile River and their conservation from pollution is the main objective to restore balance in the production of fish from natural sources and fish farms and this helps to reduce prices of tilapia.