USSEC recently provided technical support to the Egyptian aquaculture industry.  Dr. Michael Cremer, International Aquaculture Senior Program Advisor, and Timothy O’Keefe, Feed Milling Specialist, provided support in early April that included finalizing protocols and design for an aquaculture feeding demonstration, formulation of soy-optimized feeds for the aqua feeding demonstration, assistance to the aquafeed manufacturing sector in the design of new extrusion aquafeed mills, and implementation planning for two aquaculture projects funded by the Indiana Qualified State Soybean Board (QSSB).

Together with Salah Taher, USSEC’s local aquaculture coordinator in Egypt, the team met with Aller Aqua, a major supplier of fish feed, to formulate soy-optimized tilapia fingerling and growout feeds to be used in a model feeding demonstration.  The feeding demonstration, which will be conducted at WorldFish in Abassa, Egypt, will address two of the most critical constraints currently impacting the Egypt aquaculture industry:  poor quality tilapia genetic stock and poor quality tilapia feed.  WorldFish, the USSEC cooperator in the feeding demonstration, began a program last year to release improved tilapia genetic stock to the Egypt tilapia industry.  The USSEC-WorldFish cooperative feeding demonstration will compare the soy-optimized feed in extruded floating and pelleted sinking forms with genetically improved and non-improved tilapia to demonstrate the economic, productivity and sustainability advantages of extruded feed and improved strain tilapia.
The USSEC aqua team met with the director and staff of WorldFish at the Abassa aquaculture research facility to finalize protocols and scheduling for the feeding demonstration.  The USSEC aqua team additionally met with Wadi Group and Cairo Poultry to provide technical information on aquafeed mill design and layout for two new extrusion aquafeed mills planned for construction by the two private sector groups.  Lastly, plans were made to conduct fish nutrition and feed formulation seminars, a buyer/sellers workshop, and post-harvest market chain training under the Indiana QSSB funded Aquafeed Manufacturing Support and Market Chain Development Projects.