Improving Resident Water Quality While Maintaining Tilapia Productivity

Aqua farmers are faced with numerous challenges to maintain thriving animals and a profitable operation. One challenge that can have a big impact on farmers and their operations is changing local or national regulations.

In Thailand, the local government introduced a new regulation to limit tilapia cage farming. The regulation aimed to improve water quality and reduce water pollution in rivers and reservoirs that surround local communities. The policy change resulted in a need for farmers to change their practices away from cage farming or face a costly fine.

One solution to address the regulation change is to switch to polyethylene (PE) lined ponds; however, the shift to PE-lined ponds posed a challenging situation for local farmers. Historically, the cost to switch to a PE-lined farm was high, and the system could increase technical challenges while lowering productivity. Many local farms had not yet had experience in developing a different aquaculture management system to adapt to the new regulations. But that could soon change.

PE-lined ponds offer various benefits to farmers, including the ability to increase efficiency and control daily feed intake; peace of mind through natural disasters, such as floods or droughts; and enhanced control of environmental factors, like temperature and waste. In turn, PE-lined ponds typically result in higher tilapia survival rates at nearly 95%, compared to river cage farming (70%) and reservoir cage farming (80%).

With a feed usage potential of 100 metric tons per month, Chonpapat Farm, one of the largest tilapia farms in Thailand’s Northeastern region, needed support to bolster productivity and production after installing a PE-lined pond to comply with the new policy. Chonpapat Farm turned to Cargill as a trusted partner to deploy AquaPond feed.

The AquaPond feed formulation is specially designed to increase fish growth rate and control water quality in a PE lined pond environment. Utilizing an appropriated ingredient for tilapia in a high-density system, AquaPond helps to balance energy and nutrition, maximizing digestion and nutrient absorption to achieve better growth. The formulation and ingredients also help to lower waste produced by the fish and reduce pond pollution to decrease water management costs and enhance water quality.

The results at Chonpapat Farm are undeniable. AquaPond enabled the farm to consistently increase their tilapia survival rate in both the grow-out and nursery stages by 10% while simultaneously reducing feed cost by 15%.

Today, the Cargill Thailand team continues to partner closely with Chonpapat Farm to ensure long-lasting results. The partnership is a win-win for Chonpapat Farm – it provides quality fingerling sources, daily water quality monitoring, and offers a mobile lab for disease management support and technical training to farm managers and workers. The farm has been able to both increase fish productivity and comply with local regulation to make residential water quality safer for residents.