Developing an economic breeding objective for tilapia in Nigeria

Nigeria is Africa’s second-largest aquaculture producer with fish accounting for 28%* of the country’s animal protein intake. Nile tilapia is a tropical species native to Africa and its production in Nigeria has grown in recent years, particularly among smallholders.

International research and innovation organisation WorldFish^# focuses on the sustainable development of fisheries and aquaculture in low- and middle-income countries. WorldFish engaged AbacusBio to develop an economic breeding objective that would be relevant to Nigeria’s tilapia farmers’ production systems and sociodemographic settings.

Nile tilapia broodstock source

WorldFish has a tilapia selective breeding programme, known as Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT). GIFT supplies broodstock to the hatcheries that produce fingerlings for commercial and small-scale producers in many countries, including Nigeria.

WorldFish recognised that, with Nigeria’s tilapia production expanding, it needed to build on the GIFT breeding programme and deliver broodstock that aligned more closely with local production needs.

Challenge: Developing breeding objectives aligned with farmers’ needs

For an economic breeding objective to be effective, it must resonate with farmers and be practical to apply within their systems and circumstances.

The objectives of the AbacusBio project were twofold:

1. To assess the value of genetic improvement for various traits in Nigeria-farmed tilapia, and
2. To explore variability across geographies and socioeconomic groups.

The goal was to then develop a breeding objective that incorporated both economic modelling and farmer preferences, while also aligning with the specific needs of an industry that consists of mostly smallholder, commercially-oriented producers.

How AbacusBio approached the project

The team used a three-step process:

• Industry consultation
• Economic modelling
• Farmer survey

The industry consultation involved 19 stakeholders across the Nigerian tilapia value chain. The purpose was to understand production systems and on-farm practices, identify traits of interest, and quantify costs related to each trait.

Prior to the consultation phase, a short list of 10 traits was developed through discussions with tilapia breeding programme experts at WorldFish. Via the consultation process, the five most important traits were identified: feed conversion ratio, growth rate, survival, resilience to low oxygen and skin colour.

Economic values were then calculated for the five traits and these values informed a trait preference trade-off survey.

Farmer survey

The survey was carried out across eight Nigerian states that were strategically selected to capture variation in tilapia production systems, geographies and farmer circumstances. The survey consisted of two parts:

• Gathering sociodemographic and production details for each farmer
• Trait preference trade-off

Part one collected information on each farmer’s:

• Tilapia production system (e.g. use of pond, tank or cage; source of stock; stocking rates; total output)
• Farm characteristics (e.g. did they farm other fish species, livestock or crops)
• Involvement in farmer associations
• Economic, food and livelihood security
• Fish production labour (i.e. was the aquaculture work carried out equally by men/women, boys/girls in the household, or dominated by either female or male household members, or was hired labour used)

The survey yielded 479 useable surveys (i.e. farmers responded to both parts of the survey, and they spent an adequate time completing the survey).

Project outcomes

Using multivariate cluster analysis, farmers fell into four distinct trait preference clusters. The economic values assigned to each trait were then adjusted to reflect the trait preferences of the four clusters.

Next steps

The four clusters’ preference-adjusted economic values could inform future development of tilapia strains tailored to Nigerian farmers’ specific economic conditions and trait improvement preferences, ultimately improving production.

*2022 data.
^#WorldFish is part of the world’s largest agricultural innovation network, One CGIAR.