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This is the executive summary of the full report, published on 12 March 2026 by AWASH.
You can find the full report here: link
I used an LLM to help draft/edit this report, but I’ve reviewed and edited it myself before posting.
This report builds on AWASH’s earlier assessment of Aquaculture and Fish Welfare in Ghana by testing its main conclusions through scoping research. The earlier report identified Nile tilapia farming on Lake Volta as the highest-priority area for welfare intervention, given that tilapia account for 80–95% of Ghana’s farmed fish production and cage farming on Lake Volta produces most national output. It also identified three promising farmer-focused intervention areas: reducing stocking density, improving hatchery mortality, and improving water quality. The purpose of this new report is to present the findings of scoping research conducted between October and December 2025, intended to validate these priorities through farm visits, stakeholder engagement, and additional literature review, and to assess which intervention areas appear most tractable in practice.
The sector is shaped by a relatively concentrated institutional and commercial structure. Aquaculture governance is led by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Fisheries Commission, and the Veterinary Services Department, with the Chamber of Aquaculture acting as an important intermediary between producers and government. Production itself is concentrated among a relatively small number of large farms and hatcheries, while feed supply is also dominated by a small number of firms. This concentration creates both opportunity and risk for welfare interventions: reaching a limited number of actors could affect a large share of production, but resistance from a small number of stakeholders could also constrain sector-wide change.
Field visits were conducted at eight tilapia farms, primarily large cage farms near Lake Volta. The findings suggest that some previously identified welfare risks are more important than others. Stocking densities at grow-out stage were generally within accepted welfare ranges, indicating that reducing grow-out density is unlikely to be the most promising intervention. By contrast, early-life mortality emerged as a consistent and significant problem. Survival from egg to fingerling was typically around 40–55%, compared with approximately 70–95% during grow-out. This suggests that welfare risks are concentrated in hatchery and nursery stages, where disease, water quality, handling, and broodstock management may all play an important role. Farmers also stated that if juvenile survival improved, they would reduce broodstock numbers rather than increase production, because broodstock are expensive to maintain. This suggests that improving juvenile survival may reduce both mortality and broodstock numbers, rather than necessarily driving further expansion.
Several other common patterns were observed across farms. All farms used untreated lake water for broodstock and nursery ponds, with only basic physical filtration in place. Slaughter practices were uniformly poor: fish were generally harvested and died by air asphyxiation, with no formal stunning or slaughter protocols observed. Feed use was highly concentrated, with most farms relying primarily on Ranaan Feed, and reported feed conversion ratios were broadly similar across cage farms.
The scoping also identified several areas of divergence across farms. Water quality monitoring at grow-out stage was inconsistent: some farms monitored dissolved oxygen, pH, and temperature, while others had limited monitoring. Broodstock sourcing varied, with some farms using approved suppliers and others relying on non-approved or internally retained stock, which may affect disease risk and juvenile survival. Hatchery structure also differed, with some farms using controlled hatchery systems and others allowing eggs to hatch naturally in broodstock ponds. These structural differences may affect the feasibility and likely impact of hatchery-focused interventions.
Farmer incentives emerged as central to intervention feasibility. Farmers consistently viewed feed cost reduction, disease prevention, and improved survival as compelling goals. Interventions framed around feed efficiency and disease management therefore appear more likely to gain adoption than those framed around welfare alone. Despite a national ISKNV vaccination programme in 2018 due to extremely high mortalities, some mortality continued (though, not at the same rates as before). The absence of sufficient diagnostic confirmation means it is not possible to attribute these mortalities to ISKNV or other causes. This has resulted in vaccination being widely viewed with scepticism, meaning any vaccination intervention would need significant education and continued testing.
AWASH supplemented the field visits with a presentation at the Aquaculture Ghana 2025 conference, and collected data from the attendees through surveys. The conference engagement provided complementary insights from smaller-scale producers. Survey respondents were mostly small farms, many of which operated ponds, tanks, or mixed-species systems rather than cage-based tilapia farms. Their responses therefore do not represent the structure of national production, but they are still useful for understanding farmer perspectives. Feed costs, disease outbreaks, and water quality were identified as the main operational challenges. Vaccination was rarely mentioned as a prevention strategy. Many participants had not previously calculated stocking density formally, and informal calculations suggested that smaller farms may be stocking above recommended levels. These findings suggest that smaller producers may face greater technical capacity constraints than larger commercial farms, while also appearing relatively receptive to training and practical guidance.
Taken together, the scoping findings suggest that the most promising near-term intervention areas differ somewhat from the initial desk-based assessment. Reducing grow-out stocking density now appears less promising among large commercial farms, as densities were generally already within acceptable ranges. Improving hatchery and juvenile survival remains the strongest candidate intervention area, given the scale of early-life mortality, the apparent level of farmer control over these conditions, and the alignment with farmer incentives. Water quality remains a possible intervention area, but its tractability appears more limited because many grow-out water quality problems are shaped by lake-wide factors outside direct farm control. However, local dissolved oxygen monitoring and management may still offer value.
In addition to revisiting the original intervention options, the scoping identified several new areas worth exploring further. These include broodstock health, strengthening diagnostic and laboratory capacity, and improving feed quality through supplier-level engagement. Each of these may offer a route to improving fish welfare while also addressing practical farm priorities. By contrast, vaccination programmes and pre-slaughter stunning appear less tractable in the short term. Vaccination faces credibility and uptake barriers, while humane slaughter would require substantial changes to current farm practices and awareness.
Overall, the scoping research strengthens the case for focusing on farmer-focused interventions in Ghana’s tilapia sector, while narrowing the most promising options. The evidence suggests that the strongest opportunities lie in early-life survival, broodstock management, diagnostics, and economically aligned efficiency improvements. A more detailed intervention selection paper will be needed to compare these options systematically and determine which should be prioritised for pilot implementation.
