ARTEMIA IN AFRICA

WEBINAR REPORT

History of Artemia activities in Africa

Wednesday, May 4 2022, 1400 – 1600h East Africa Standard Time (GMT+3)

Webinar Report

Background

Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) in partnership with the International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium (IAAC) hosted a webinar on the History of Artemia in Africa on 4th May 2022. This was necessitated by the fact that Artemia production has been ongoing on the continent for more than four decades, similar to Asia, but without any distinctive levels of success. The world demand for Artemia cysts has continued to increase and annual consumption is now estimated at 3,500 – 4,000 tonnes with Asia being the largest producer and consumer globally while Africa lags behind in both production and utilization, despite Artemia having been introduced on the two continents at the same time.  Diverse levels of Artemia activities in different African countries were presented, to take stock of where the continent is, explore opportunities and address the various challenges impeding the production and utilization of artemia for improved livelihoods and overall aquaculture development in Africa.

Summary of the webinar

The webinar attracted participation of 153 individuals from 25 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and America. It was structured into two segments, country presentations followed by a Question and Answer session (The program is in Annex 1). While introducing the webinar objectives, Prof Patrick Sorgeloos indicated that this was under the auspices of the IAAC and aligned to recommendations from the Artemia Aquaculture workshop held on 22nd September 2021 (a side-event of the 2020 Global Conference on Aquaculture, Shanghai-China). The genesis of Artemia production in Kenya under the Bilateral project between the Republic of Kenya and Kingdom of Belgium (1984-1986) and subsequent developments to date were highlighted. In Tunisia, it was indicated that Artemia research started in 1921 and existence has been reported in 25 sites. Inoculation with other strains has never been done and the country needs new approaches to enhance cyst production. Occurrence and research work in Libya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, and Mozambique were also presented. Notably, there is no natural occurrence of Artemia population in Uganda, but growth experiments have been performed using inland waters from Lake Bunyampaka and further trials on tank and pond production, and later inoculation in the wild will follow. On the other hand, Artemia was introduced in Tanga-Tanzania through a Kenyan salt company (Kensalt Ltd) but awareness and technical expertise are limiting factors. Cyst production in Mozambique was on a gradual rise but an outbreak of white spot disease in shrimp farms between 2011-2012 affected demand. With no market, the Artemia demonstration farm in Mozambique was converted to a trial farm for Oreochromis mossambicusArtemia activities have also been reported in other countries such as Algeria, Botswana, Eritrea, Madagascar and Namibia as presented during the webinar.

The webinar Q&A session centred around the following topics;

  • Presence of native Artemia species before introduction of Artemia franciscana in Kenya
  • Diversifying the use of Artemia other than aquaculture through value addition techniques (e.g. as human food – “fried Artemia patties)
  • Current market outlet for locally produced cysts in Kenya
  • Performance of different variants/genotypes of Artemia growth, response to environmental stress
  • Production of Artemia as a secondary product for salt farmers and whether the two production systems run in parallel
  • Need to undertake a scoping study to better understand issues and bottlenecks for Artemia culture in different African countries in order to develop a robust Artemia value chain.
  • Possibilities of commercialization of Artemia production (large scale) by investors under the Blue Economy initiative in Kenya. What is it that we can borrow from the leading exporters e.g. China?
  • Mechanism being explored by KMFRI/Government to secure a solution to land-tenure issues that are affecting artisanal Artemia pond production at the Kenyan coast?
  • Need for a comprehensive understanding of the value chain dynamics before commercialization, with lessons from Mozambique
  • Production dynamics (production output per unit area, annual production from the natural populations)
  • Balancing between biomass harvesting and population regeneration
  • Potential of bulk Artemia production in all Ugandan saltwater lakes
  • Freshwater Artemia production

Next steps

It is evident that there have been efforts to develop an Artemia industry in Africa, with reports on occurrence dating back to 1921 in Tunisia, to inoculation in salt production ponds in Kenya in 1984. Production has however failed to reach its full potential as compared to Asia. There are lessons to learn, such as ready locally-driven market through operational marine hatcheries and mariculture farms, to coordinated and collaborative regional efforts to optimize production. Knowledge exchange through the IAAC consortium is therefore necessary for a cohesive understanding of regional dynamics and developing a robust industry that will redefine the mariculture sector in Africa for improved livelihoods. This would be complemented by an Artemia Reference Centre for Africa that will act as an information repository and technical knowledge exchange for the region.

Acknowledgement

The host would wish to thank the presenters and attendees for their valuable time, the International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium (IAAC) for considering KMFRI to host the webinar. The Western Indian Ocean Marine Sciences Association (WIOMSA) is acknowledged for sponsoring the Webinar through the Optimizing Artemia Production Technology for Sustainable Aquaculture Development (APTSAD) project, Food Security and Economic Growth for the East African Coastal Communities project.