Catfish Aquaculture: Africa's Undervalued Protein Powerhouse

African catfish — scientifically *Clarias gariepinus*, also called the North African or sharptooth catfish — is a freshwater, air-breathing species native to the continent's rivers, floodplains, and wetlands. It is a unique and commercially important tropical aquaculture species, now farmed across Europe, Asia, and South America, though it remains distinctly African in origin and market dominance. Its defining biological trait — an accessory breathing organ that lets it survive in low-oxygen, stagnant water — is precisely what makes it Africa's aquaculture workhorse: it tolerates poor water quality, high stocking densities, and basic pond infrastructure that would kill tilapia or trout.

Unlike wild-caught tilapia or marine species, catfish is almost entirely a **farmed** product on the continent, produced in earthen ponds, concrete tanks, and increasingly in recirculating and flow-through systems near urban centers.

### History of Production

Catfish farming in Africa moved from subsistence backyard ponds in the 1970s–80s to a commercial industry from the 1990s onward, led overwhelmingly by Nigeria, which has held the position of the world's largest producer for decades, with its industry advancing significantly over the past twenty years. Ghana developed alongside it as a smaller but steady producer, historically running at roughly a third of Nigeria's output and remaining focused on domestic demand.

The broader continental trend has been explosive. African aquaculture production has risen 500 percent over the past two decades, reaching roughly 2.5 million metric tonnes — though this is still only about 3 percent of global aquaculture output, underlining both the scale already achieved and the scale still untapped. Growth has accelerated sharply of late: Africa's aquafeed usage rose nearly 28 percent in a single recent year, with Egypt now leading continental growth after national feed consumption surged over a third.

### Uses of the Product

- **Fresh/live table fish** — the dominant consumption form in West Africa

- **Smoked and dried fish** — the traditional preservation and export form, especially across Nigeria and Ghana

- **Frozen whole and filleted catfish** — a growing urban retail and export category

- **Fish feed input** — offal, trimmings, and by-catch converted into fishmeal

- **Fish oil** — extracted from processing waste for feed and nutraceutical use

- **Fish leather/skin** — an emerging niche material for fashion and accessories

- **Bait and restocking stock** — fingerlings for further aquaculture

### What CPG Products Can It Make

| Category | Product Examples |

|---|---|

| Fresh/Frozen | Whole gutted catfish, fillets, portioned cuts |

| Smoked/Dried | Traditional smoked catfish, sun-dried catfish |

| Value-added | Catfish sausages, fish balls, fish cake/burger patties, catfish flour/powder |

| Snacks | Smoked catfish chips, spiced/peppered catfish snacks |

| Oils & extracts | Catfish oil (omega-3 nutraceutical), fish oil supplements |

| Feed & agri-inputs | Fishmeal for poultry/livestock/aquafeed, organic pond fertilizer |

| Non-food | Fish leather (bags, wallets, footwear), collagen and gelatin extracts |

| Pet food | Catfish-based pet food formulations |

### Africa and Global Market Potential

**Global scale:** Global African catfish production sits around 231,000 metric tonnes, valued at over US$674 million — with sub-Saharan Africa alone accounting for no less than 91 percent of that global output, and Nigeria the clear regional leader.

**Adjacent value chains catfish feeds into, globally:**

- Fishmeal and fish oil: an estimated $10.9 billion market in 2025, projected to nearly double to $20.6 billion by 2035

- Fish feed: $64.7 billion in 2025, projected to reach $108.1 billion by 2034, with catfish named among the core species driving demand

- Fishery by-products (collagen, gelatin, meal, oil): projected to grow from $26.3 billion in 2025 to $37.5 billion by 2030

- Fish leather: a genuinely emerging category, with estimates ranging widely (from tens of millions to tens of billions depending on scope), signaling real but not yet reliably measured upside

**Africa's downstream processed market:** Africa's dried/smoked fish market — catfish's dominant processed form — reached 856,000 tonnes and $4.7 billion in value, led by Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, forecast to grow to nearly a million tonnes and $5.7 billion by 2035. Nigeria's dried/smoked fish production alone has grown at over 6 percent annually since 2013.

**The clearest gap signal:** Nigeria produces roughly 1.07 million tonnes of fish annually against estimated national demand of 3.6 million tonnes — a supply gap of approximately 2.5 million tonnes that neither local production nor imports have closed.

### Which African Countries Produce It

1. **Nigeria** — the undisputed continental leader by volume and value, dominating West African aquaculture

2. **Ghana** — the second significant producer, focused primarily on domestic demand

3. **Egypt, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon** — secondary but growing producers, with Egypt currently leading Africa's aquafeed consumption growth

4. **Regional pattern:** In West Africa, catfish accounts for nearly half of all aquaculture production — well ahead of tilapia's roughly 30 percent share. Southern Africa, by contrast, remains the smallest aquaculture-producing sub-region on the continent, representing barely half a percent of Africa's total production tonnage

Catfish production is concentrated in West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana), leaving Southern and East Africa as largely untapped expansion territory.

### The InterAfrica Potential

- **East Africa is a near-blank slate.** Southern and East African aquaculture output is a fraction of West Africa's, positioning Rwanda, Uganda, and the wider EAC bloc to become processing and re-export hubs rather than competing head-on with Nigeria's volume.

- **Intra-African trade imbalance is an opening.** Intra-African imports of dried/smoked fish have declined since 2013 even as export values rise — led by Uganda and Tanzania — signaling room for a coordinated trade corridor echoing RACS's cold chain thesis.

- **Feed-side investment is following the growth.** International players are already investing tens of millions of dollars in African feed facilities — a model for co-investment in regional feed mills serving catfish farmers across borders rather than within single markets.

- **A natural Masterclass Africa module.** Catfish farming's low technical barrier — tolerant of poor water quality, minimal infrastructure — makes it a strong Agripreneur Mastery training subject, especially for youth and women's cooperatives in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region.

- **A natural hospitality tie-in.** Smoked catfish and catfish-based CPG snacks are a fit for InterAfrica Hospitality & Tourism's lodge and HORECA supply chains — sourcing African protein into African hospitality rather than importing it.

### Producer Gaps and Opportunities

**Gaps:**

- **Processing infrastructure deficit** — most catfish is sold fresh or informally smoked over open fires, with minimal cold chain or export-grade processing standards

- **Feed cost and import dependence** — feed remains the largest input cost, much of it imported, squeezing farmer margins

- **Fragmented, informal supply chains** — weak traceability limits access to premium export and CPG retail channels

- **Regional concentration risk** — with over 90 percent of output in a handful of West African countries, most of the continent has no meaningful catfish industry at all

- **By-product waste** — skins, bones, viscera, and heads are largely discarded rather than converted into fishmeal, oil, leather, or collagen, despite strong global demand for exactly these by-products

**Opportunities:**

- Standardized smoking/drying technology to unlock export-grade dried catfish

- Local fishmeal/fish oil processing to capture value currently lost as raw waste

- Cold chain and frozen/fillet retail lines targeting Africa's growing urban supermarket channel

- Fish leather and collagen as a genuinely novel, low-competition CPG category

- Farmer aggregation and cooperative financing to close Nigeria's 2.5-million-tonne supply gap with bankable, formal operations

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**Africa Brew Brief** | Africa One Media

*Investigating the value chains behind Africa's food, trade, and agribusiness systems.*