Increasing Tilapia Farming Productivity in the Dominican Republic

Gregory Whitis showing farmers how to identify the sex of tilapias

A group of young men from La Cuchilla municipal district, in Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic, decided to take advantage of the abundant river waters nearby by starting small pisciculture ponds. Sadly, in the beginning, their results were not what they expected.

Volunteer Gregory Whitis, an aquaculture expert with more than 35 years of experience, visited the Dominican Republic last December to trach tilapia farmers from the communities of Los Conucos and La Represa best practices to make their production more sustainable and profitable. His training included site selection, feeding, growing-out and sorting, record keeping, and other general recommendations for tilapia farming. 

Farmers learning how to identify turbidity levels with a round bucket and a stick.

A meeting with the Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales (Dominican Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Research or IDIAF) was the first step of the assignment, so Gregory could get to know better the aquaculture context in the Dominican Republic. This was followed by a SWOT analysis of pisciculture in the two communities. High costs of feed and fingerlings, shortage of training, and the lack of association of all the farmers to buy together were identified as the biggest weaknesses. 

During his assignment, farmers learned practices such as how to measure the pond’s turbidity with available materials, and how to identify the sex of the fish. Another one of the most important lessons was how to feed the tilapia according to their life stage. This gives the farmers a lot of independence from their suppliers and also saves them money as fingerlings and feed are the two most expensive supplies for their fish production. 

Gregory inside a pool showing farmers how the aeration system works.

Another important acquisition for the tilapia farmers was a homemade aeration system to add more oxygen to the water in the ponds and provide the tilapia a better environment. “More oxygen means more algae, and more algae means more food.” All these measures and more were written down on the “3C Management Plan”, which stands for “Control, Control, Control”. Besides independence, the final goal of the plan is for the farmers to sell their tilapia only in portions of one or one and a half pounds, and not by half pounds or one-third of a pound as they used to. 

Gregory was also invited to visit IDIAF’s experimental station in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, where they grow tilapia with YY super males, and have a cage pisciculture project in the Taveras pond, in the same province. The assignment finished with a meeting with all the aquaculture-related authorities of the country, were Gregory explained the potential of the country to produce its own feed so they do not have to keep on importing it. The idea is to locally produce feed with better protein percentages for a lower price.

Visit to the ponds of IDIAF's Experimental Station in Santiago de los Caballeros.