Egypt is a major producer of farmed tilapia, yet relatively little attention has been given to fish welfare during the final stages of harvest. Harvest Well Egypt aims to change that.
When Ethical Seafood Research (ESR) and Nautilus Collaboration began exploring how to improve the welfare of farmed Nile tilapia at harvest, the ambition was clear: address a stage of fish farming where welfare can easily be overlooked.
As ESR Researcher, Nada Habashi, has observed through her work on the project:
“Throughout the grow-out period, farmers’ attention was traditionally focused only on rearing, feed and disease prevention, with the mindset that once the fish is harvested, the job is done.”
Conventional harvesting can involve several stages, including crowding, netting and transfer out of water. Harvest Well Egypt was established to investigate practical ways of reducing potential suffering during this final stage of production, while also considering something essential for farmer adoption: the quality of the final product.
For Nada, the project also changed how she personally thought about this stage of a fish’s life:
“Many people assume a fish ‘just comes out of the water and dies,’ but it actually suffers. Imagining myself in the fish’s position made me far more conscious of protecting fish welfare.”
But identifying a welfare problem was only the beginning. What the team didn’t yet know was how much the farms themselves would shape the answer.
Why Harvest Well Egypt changed its original approach
Harvest Well Egypt did not begin as an ice-slurry project.
The team’s initial plan was to explore electrical stunning, which uses an electrical current to render fish rapidly unconscious.
Then came the first visits to Egyptian farms.
For Nautilus Collaboration, seeing the farms first-hand was a turning point:
“Ponds often contain multiple fish species of varying sizes, and current electrical stunners on the market require uniform sizing to deliver the correct, effective dose of electricity for each species. Additionally, securing a consistent power supply, clean water and sufficient access to the ponds for the stunning machines presented real practical hurdles.”
Instead of trying to make the farms fit the technology, the team shifted their focus to a more practical alternative: ice-slurry stunning.
Testing ice-slurry stunning for Nile tilapia in Egypt
Ice slurry uses a mixture of ice and water to rapidly reduce the body temperature of fish. Importantly for Harvest Well Egypt, its basic components make it a potentially more accessible approach within Egyptian farming environments.
But switching approaches didn’t mean there was a ready-made protocol that could simply be introduced.
Egyptian Nile tilapia are commonly raised in earthen ponds, creating different conditions from other aquaculture systems where similar research has taken place. The team therefore needed to develop an approach suited to this context, testing different ratios of ice and water and whether salt should be added.
This is where another assumption changed. As Nada explains:
“At first, we expected we would be able to use salt as part of the recipe, but we discovered it had a negative effect as the quantity increased, causing more mucus production and a white/pale discolouration in the fish’s skin and body.”
This mattered not only from a welfare perspective, but from a commercial one. Changes to the appearance and quality of the fish could influence whether an intervention is acceptable to farmers and consumers. Farmer feedback therefore became an important part of refining the protocol.
Taking fish welfare research from small trials to working farms
As the research progressed, a bigger challenge emerged: how would an approach tested at a smaller scale translate to a commercial harvest?
Increasing the number of fish made behavioural observations more difficult, prompting changes to tank design and surface area. The team also had to consider how fish would be moved, how harvesting teams would interact with the system and whether it could realistically fit into existing operations.
As Nada explains:
“You can run endless lab studies and trials that produce excellent, logical results, yet the situation on the ground can turn out very different.”
Recent work has therefore seen the team test the approach at a commercial scale on a tilapia farm in Kafr El Sheikh, helping researchers identify what needs to be adapted when an intervention becomes part of a working harvest.
Collaboration between ESR and Nautilus has been central to that process, bringing together complementary expertise as the research has evolved.
As Nautilus Collaboration explains:
“The ESR team brings invaluable, extensive experience in Egyptian aquaculture, while we contribute our specialised knowledge in fish health and welfare from various production systems worldwide.”
Regular discussion after each trial has helped the teams analyse what happened, adapt the research and develop practical tools, including the tank design used for commercial-scale ice-slurry trials.
Why farmers are central to improving tilapia welfare
One principle has remained consistent throughout Harvest Well Egypt: farmers need to be part of developing the solution.
Their feedback has influenced decisions around the ice-slurry protocol, product quality, equipment and how the intervention could fit into existing harvesting practices. As the people who ultimately implement these approaches, farmers also understand the practical and economic pressures of aquaculture in ways researchers alone cannot.
As Nada explains:
“If their mindset and approach change, the whole market changes with it, because farmers are both producers and consumers themselves, with their own families to feed. Broadening their awareness of the details involved in improving animal welfare is what drives real change, since farmers are the ones who implement it in practice and bring the product to market.”
The aim, therefore, isn’t simply to demonstrate what could work. It’s to develop an approach that farmers and harvesting teams could realistically continue using.
What’s next for Harvest Well Egypt and tilapia welfare research?
For Harvest Well Egypt, the next stage is about turning what has been learned into something that can be tested, refined and ultimately used more widely.
Further commercial trials are planned across more farms and the team aims to document the research and its processes through a standard operating procedure (SOP), supported by practical guidance, workshops and training for farm staff and harvesting teams. The findings are also intended to contribute to a future research publication.
But for Nautilus Collaboration, the ultimate goal is practical adoption:
“Our ultimate goal is for this training to support practical adoption of the project findings, helping maximise positive impact for farmers, fish welfare and on-ground harvesting practices.”
Harvest Well Egypt may have changed considerably since those first farm visits, but its ambition remains the same: to reduce the suffering of farmed tilapia during an often-overlooked stage of production.
We’re thankful to our generous supporter, Coefficient Giving, and our local partner, AQUAVET Egypt, for helping to make this ambition a reality.
Want to support our farmed tilapia research?
Harvest Well Egypt has already reached several important milestones, but there is much more to learn.
Your support helps ESR continue developing and testing scientific and practical tools to improve aquatic animal welfare in Egypt and across Africa.
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