Project Name：Aquaculture Project (St. Lucia)

Project status：Completed projects

Cooperating Country：Caribbean, St. Lucia

Project Description：

With St. Lucia’s marine fishing stocks having become depleted over recent years, land-based aquaculture is becoming increasingly important as a means of increasing production of fish and prawn, and in stabilizing food security. The government of St. Lucia wishes to promote the development of aquaculture in order to provide citizens with a healthy source of protein, in line with its agricultural diversification policies.

St. Lucia faces a number of problems in developing aquaculture: (i) an inability to produce sufficient quantities of fish fingerlings and prawn fry in support of a general increase in production; (2) a lack of aquaculture facilities and technology to stabilize supplies of fish and prawn fry; (3) a lack of aquaculture management skills among St. Lucian fish farmers.

 In facilitating the development of aquaculture, the main components of this project will include: (1) establishing an aquaculture center, including a hatchery with a production capacity capable of satisfying domestic requirements for tilapia fingerlings and prawn fry; (2) extending technical services to aquaculture farmers; (3) organizing aquaculture training workshops; and (4) building the capacity of counterparts from the Fisheries Department.

Specific project work components will include: (1) establishing an aquaculture center, including a hatchery, to supply sufficient numbers of tilapia fingerlings and prawn fry to farmers; (2) introducing super-male tilapia broodstock so as to produce 95 percent all-male fingerlings and establish all-male tilapia culture; (3) introducing a good stock of freshwater prawn so as to stabilize production and supply high-quality prawn fry; (4) conducting extension services to assist aquaculture farmers in culturing fish and prawn; and (5) training cooperating counterparts from the Fisheries Department, thereby building capacity to carry out the project and to offer technical services and counseling.

Project No：TCD-2011-C06-03

Implementation Start Date：2011-01-01

Implementation End Date：2016-12-31

Source of Funding：Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Project Objectives：

1. Establish an aquaculture center, including a hatchery with a production capacity capable of satisfying domestic requirement for tilapia fingerlings and prawn fry.
2. Produce 360,000 tilapia fingerlings and 3.6 million prawn fry to supply to 80 domestic fish farmers. The total value of tilapia fingerlings and prawn fry output is expected to reach US$1,203,000 and US$1,326,000 respectively.
3. Promote and expand tilapia and freshwater prawn farming in St. Lucia.

Executing Agency：

Taiwan Technical Mission in St. Lucia / Aquaculture Division, Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production, Fisheries and Rural Development (St. Lucia)

Implementation Arrangement：The local Taiwan Technical Mission will assist the partner country to implement the project.

Project Performance：

To the end of December 2016, the following activities have been completed:

In 2011:
1. Carried out the operation and management of Union Aquaculture Facility.
2. Produced 52,000 tilapia fingerlings.
3. Produced 552,000 prawn fry.
4. Introduced 5,000 post-larvae freshwater prawns.
5. Introduced 50 red super male and 50 black super male tilapia; a 99 percent male-to-female ratio was achieved and measured in 2,000 fingerlings.
6. Conducted three training workshops.
7. Extended production to and assisted 26 fish farmers.
8. Trained two full-time personnel assigned to work at Union Aquaculture Facility by the Fisheries Department, building their capacity in basic fish and prawn reproduction skills, including tilapia broodstock selection, breeding and fingerling collection, and the measurement of male-to-female ratio in the hatchery.

In 2012:

In 2013:

In 2014:

In 2016:
1. Produced 100,000 tilapia fingerlings, to provide to 18 small-scale farmer cultivate .
2. Produced 1,000,000 prawn fry, to provide to 24 small-scale farmer cultivate.

Project Contact：Ken Hua Chang

Phone：886-2-2873-2323 Ext.218

E-mail：k.h.chang@icdf.org.tw

Projected Benefits：

1. The project will establish breeding and culture technologies for tilapia and freshwater prawn, enhancing the potential for aquaculture development in St. Lucia.
2. The project will improve the quality of tilapia fingerlings and improve commercial production by increasing the proportion of all-male fingerlings to over 90 percent.
3. Total production is expected to exceed 360,000 tilapia fingerlings and 3.6 million prawn fry. Extension services will be provided to 80 farming households and 20 hectares.
4. Production of local tilapia will be raised to 147 tons, and giant river prawn to 54 tons. This will raise the output value of local tilapia to US$1,203,000 and giant river prawn to US$1,326,000.
5. The project will facilitate the development of St. Lucia’s aquaculture industry and improve the economy in rural areas.
6. St. Lucian stakeholders will receive training to independently operate and manage the aquaculture center. The project will be handed over to St. Lucian authorities .

Mission：Taiwan Techical Mission in Saint Lucia