The fisheries sector in Malawi directly employs about 60,636 fishers and indirectly employs over half a million people through fish processing, fish marketing, boat building and engine repair. It sustains the livelihoods of about 1.6 million people and contributes about 4 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 70 per cent to the dietary animal protein intake and 40 per cent to the total protein supply in the country (GoM, 2020). However, the bulk of fish consumed has historically come from the capture fisheries subsector. Aquaculture has been playing a minor role until recently. With dwindling volumes of fish catches under capture fisheries, particularly evident in the commercially viable and valuable chambo species, the country has over the past four decades experienced a decline in per capita fish consumption from about 14kgs in the 1970s to about 8kgs in 2015
There is great potential for aquaculture growth in Malawi but development is constrained by three key challenges. One of the immediate challenges to aquaculture development in Malawi is the common use of slow growing indigenous species due to the ban on the use of exotic fish species in the catchment of Lake Malawi, which, therefore, includes most of the country. Another is access to good quality commercial fish feeds, which have to be imported predominantly from Zambia but also from Zimbabwe. Finally, another key challenge relates to the low participation of private investors (GoM, 2012). The low participation of the private sector in the industry has been attributed to productivity and production constraints and key among them are the lack of availability and access to high quality fish feed, unavailability of high quality fingerlings and the ban on fast growing exotic fish species. In particular, fish feed is an important factor in cultured fish as nothing is more important than sound nutrition and adequate feeding and fish feed comprises about 60 – 70 per cent of the operating costs (Kang’ombe et. al. 2020) in fish farming.
