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April 8, 2008

Maharaja Oil Mill Advances Aquaculture Growth in Guyana

GEORGETOWN – Guyana’s aquaculture sector is growing steadily – fish are being cultivated, sold and exported – and more and more farmers are expressing interest in becoming involved. With the increase in interest comes an increase in demand for two of the most essential components for aquaculture farmers – proper feed and a stock of fingerlings (young fish roughly the size of a finger) to grow. Recognizing the increase in demand for these fundamental elements, Maharaja Oil Mill of Cove and John, East Coast Demerara, has focused their business venture on creating the supply. Maharaja Oil Mill is already the main fish feed supplier in Guyana and they recently completed the first phase of an aquaculture tilapia hatchery.

Phase one of Maharaja Oil Mill’s expansion consisted of building several preliminary brooding tanks that will be used to house a pure strain of supermale tilapia. Supermales are a strain of male fish that have two Y sex chromosomes instead of the normal XY. Because of this they produce only male offspring, which are preferable to aquaculture farmers because they are a faster growing fish and eliminate the time-consuming and costly need of separating the fish sex by hand.

The offspring from the brooding stock of supermales will then be transferred to nursing ponds where they will be grown to approximately 25 grams in size. At this point they will be large enough to sell to aquaculture farmers that are in need of fish to stock their aquaculture ponds.

Manager of Maharaja Oil Mill, Satesh Persaud, is a member of the National Aquaculture Association of Guyana (NAAG) and has been an advocate for aquaculture in Guyana for some time. Mr. Persaud first became involved in the emerging industry of aquaculture by developing fish feed. Fish feed is the greatest expense for farmers involved in aquaculture in Guyana and it was previously only available for purchase at a high cost from outside countries.

NAAG identified Maharaja Oil Mill as a facility capable of producing feed locally, and thanks to support provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) / Guyana Trade and Investment Support (GTIS) project, Mr. Persaud was able to purchase feed dryers. The mill is currently producing a high-protein fish feed that is being used by nearly all of the NAAGsupported aquaculture farms and is vital to aquaculture development in Guyana.

Mr. Persaud has plans to further expand his hatchery to provide a greater yield of fingerlings to facilitate the growth of aquaculture in Guyana.

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