CURRENT AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES OF MICROALGAE-AQUACULTURE IN EGYPT, CASE STUDY: SIMAF-PROTOTYPE-PROJECT

Abstract

Aquaculture is a global industry that supplies essential food to a growing world population and contributes more than 77% of the total Egyptian national fish production. Despite Egypt has a great potential in marine aquaculture, more than 95% of Egyptian aquaculture production is categorized as fresh water aquaculture. Until now, Egypt has no real marine aquaculture and this is attributed to many obstacles. One of these obstacles is the quality and quantity of microalgae in the marine hatcheries. Another obstacle is offering of the adequate aquaculture diet, quality and quantity. In this review, we concern on these two obstacles in relation to the current status and the future perspectives of microalgae as aquaculture feedstock in Egypt. In last few years, microalgae industry is one of the most growing industries over the world and can enhance the Egyptian national income, attributed to the great potential of microalgae production in Egypt, especially with the strong presence of microalgae production strategy keys like diversity of microalgae species in water bodies and land, culture conditions, culture facilities, native isolated strains, scientific and governmental interest, which provides great opportunities for success. The project funded from Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) in title (Prototype of Sustainable Marine Integrated Aquaculture Farm for the Production of Seafood, Valuable Bio-Products and Biodiesel, SMIAF-Prototype), therefore, the project SMIAF aims to prepare an ideal prototype for marine sustainable integrated aquaculture farm that completely environmentally-friendly, produce sustainable seafood and highly effective for nutrients removal from aquaculture wastewater and convert these wastes by microalgae, as well as seaweeds, to valuable bio-products at semi-industrial scale, with high economic value.