Ghana Agribusiness Playbook
Tilapia & Catfish hero photo
Animal Protein · Commodity No. 08

Tilapia & Catfish

Oreochromis niloticus

Ghana's dominant farmed fish, at 121,809 tonnes produced in 2024.

Is this a business for you?

The brief

The opportunity, what it takes to start, and the market signal, in plain terms.

The opportunity

Fish is about sixty percent of the protein Ghanaians eat, and farmed tilapia and catfish are the fastest-growing way to supply it. Hatchery economics, feed and disease control in intensive systems decide who profits, and a wave of public and private money is now arriving for seed, feed, processing and cold chain.

What it takes
GHS 0

A realistic starting point. First revenue in about 6 to 8 months. Use the calculator below to model your own scale.

Market signal
0 t farmed in 2024

The disease, price and biosecurity risks are covered in full inside the playbook.

Tilapia and catfish at a glance

The numbers

Figures current to mid-2026. The cedi was about GH¢11.20 to the US dollar at the time of writing (Bank of Ghana).

~0 t
Farmed fish produced in 2024, about 80% tilapia
MoFAD, 2025
~0%
Of the animal protein Ghanaians eat is fish
FAO GLOBEFISH, 2023
~0%
Of the fish Ghana eats is home-produced
Ghana NADP, 2024
~0k t
Yearly fish import gap frozen imports fill
Ghana NADP, 2024
US$0m
Spent a year on imported fish
Ghana NADP, 2024
~0%
Return on investment on a well-run cage
Magna et al., 2023
0 to 20%
How low farm survival can fall since the 2018 virus
Baah et al., 2026
~0-80%
Of farm cost that is feed, the biggest lever
Magna et al., 2023
~0m
The yearly fingerling shortfall
Asiedu / Ayiku, 2016-2024
~0%
Of farms buy seed from disease-positive farms
Asiedu / Ayiku, 2016-2024
~0x
The farm-gate to retail price mark-up
Pillar 6 analysis, 2026
GH¢0 vs 40-90
Landed frozen import against local fresh, per kg
Tridge; market search, 2026

What could it earn?

The ledger

A base-case model. Adjust your capital, region and scale to see the headline numbers, then download the full workbook.

Starting capitalGHS 100k
RegionAshanti
At this capital you could run 4 pond or cage cycles
Projected annual revenueGHS 189,000
Estimated net profit a yearGHS 56,700
Estimated payback period21 months
CostsNet profit
Tilapia & Catfish banner photo

Every stage is a business of its own. Find the one that is yours.

The biggest returns rarely sit in production. Read the playbook section by section to see where the real value is.

The playbook, section by section

8 sections

Six content pillars plus market intelligence and a strategic outlook. Open any section.

Take a playbook with you.

Downloads

Every entry ships as a full document, a cost model, an investor snapshot and a set of risk cards.

Full Playbook

All six content pillars, data tables, diagrams and market summaries.

PDFDownload Tilapia & Catfish full

Cost & Returns Model

Per-unit cost breakdowns and yield benchmarks at smallholder and commercial scale.

PDFDownload Tilapia & Catfish cost

Market Opportunity Snapshot

A two-page investor-facing brief covering demand, pricing and entry points.

PDFDownload Tilapia & Catfish market

Disease & Risk Cards

Quick-reference one-page risk profiles for the whole entry, ready for the classroom.

PDFDownload Tilapia & Catfish disease
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