Please join us for an E-IPER dissertation defense by Fridah Nyakundi: "Beyond Production Growth: Risk, Spatial Governance, and Feed Economics of Nile Tilapia Aquaculture in Western Kenya."

In-person: Y2E2 299

Virtual: Zoom webinar (password: 673648)

ABSTRACT

Aquaculture is the world's fastest-growing food production sector and a critical lever for closing the protein gap across Sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) farming has expanded dramatically over the past decade from a niche, subsidy-dependent activity to a 33,000-tonne, US$77 million industry concentrated along Lake Victoria. Public programs and private capital continue to flow into the sector, expected to substitute for declining wild catch, generate rural employment, improve nutrition, and underwrite the country's blue-economy ambitions. Yet despite this rapid growth, evidence on whether the sector is actually resilient, profitable, and spatially governable remains thin, raising pressing questions: do farmers' perceived risk priorities align with the objective economic losses they bear; does the rapid expansion of cages on Lake Victoria comply with ecological zoning regulations; and do the feed cost-coping strategies farmers rely on actually pay off over the production cycle?

My dissertation examines the long-term viability of Nile tilapia aquaculture in Lake Victoria, Kenya through three interconnected lenses: farmer risk behavior, the spatial governance of cage expansion, and the bioeconomics of feed substitution. Drawing on primary survey data from farmers, multi-source satellite remote sensing, and econometric methods, I move beyond simple production-growth metrics to test whether expansion of the aquaculture sector in Kenya is sustainable. In the first chapter, I use mixed methods to compare risk perceptions and management strategies between commercial cage and pond systems, documenting a persistent mismatch between subjective risk priorities and objective economic losses. In the second chapter, I develop a high-precision remote-sensing framework and apply it to move beyond mapping accuracy: assessing whether cage expansion, abandonment, and intensification on Lake Victoria between 2019 and 2024 comply with the official Sustainable Aquaculture Water Areas (SAWA) zoning framework. In the third chapter, I use agricultural models to test whether substituting commercial feed with cheaper homemade alternatives is economically viable once production-cycle length, operational risk, and time-adjusted profitability are jointly considered. Taken together, this dissertation reframes the question of aquaculture sustainability, moving from "how much are we producing?" to "is this sector resilient, profitable, and spatially governable?" and offers actionable insights for policymakers, lenders, and extension services working to sustain and equitably expand aquaculture across Sub-Saharan Africa.