Meet the farmer

After deciding to become a fish farmer at the age of 13, Soibam Surchandra Singh is now one of the most successful aquaculture operators in Manipur, northeast India.

Over the last 11 years Mpanju Elpidius has grown his tilapia farm from scratch, to become one of Tanzania’s largest farmers – producing over a million fingerlings as well as 20 tonnes of market-sized fish every month.

Aarti Burman, founder of AB Fish Products, who hails from a remote village in West Bengal, is one of the most successful female fish farmers in the state.

Benjamin Orishaba, a 28-year-old Ugandan, is currently managing three tilapia hatcheries for a government fish farming project in Cote D’Ivoire and also runs his own aquaculture consultancy company.

Ananda Arrieta is helping to pioneer the use of bioremediation in Australia's aquaculture sector and sees her work as an essential part of the evolution of land-based aquaculture systems.

Northern India’s landlocked shrimp sector presents huge opportunities for entrepreneurs, according to Amanleen Singh, who moved to rural Punjab in 2017 to set up his own shrimp farm after a career that included working i…

Paulo Tahara, who farms tilapia at Estância Tahara, in São Paulo state, hopes that the practice and financial benefits brought about by improving the welfare of the fish on his farm will help persuade others to do the sa…

Forty-year-old Arturo Nieves works as production director of the shrimp farming company Aquacultores del Mar Azul, located in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico.

Ananda Malakar, from the Indian state of Odisha, was inspired to start farming Asian catfish after watching a video on a social media platform last June.

Batakrushna Sahoo, who hails from Odisha state in Eastern India, is one of the region’s most revered farmers, having played an instrumental role in fish production for over three decades.

Leakey Amolloh is a director of Kings Beta Fish Farm, which produces tilapia and catfish fingerlings and also grows out fish to table size for sale in Kenya. He has plans to expand the business substantially in the comin…

32-year-old Kenechukwu Anthony Nwobodo set up and runs a catfish farming company, DieuMerci , in Lagos, Nigeria.

Yit Tung – who farms mud crabs, shrimp and tilapia in Malaysia – has no regrets about swapping a steady job as an engineer in the oil and gas sector for starting up his own aquaculture venture, RAS Aquaculture.

Stephen Woods, who has been with Scottish Sea Farms for 27 years, and farm manager of Charlotte’s Bay near Oban for the past 12 of those, was named Finfish Farmer of the Year at the recent Aquaculture Awards in Aviemore.…

27-year-old Shady Hamdy owns and operates the Ibn Al-Nafis tilapia hatchery – alongside Dr Tamer Bastweesy – in Kafr El Sheikh, Egypt.

David Dupaul-Chicoine recently established an urban RAS business in Montreal with the capacity to produce up to 30 tonnes of Arctic char a year. Coupled with an innovative and ever-evolving business plan, Opercule is an …

Sailesh Chudasama believes that biofloc production – of species including shrimp, tilapia and catfish – can create well-paid jobs and improve food security, both in Ghana and beyond.

Six years after taking up aquaculture Yatendra Kashyap is one of the leading fish farmers in Bihar, with an annual production of around 65 tonnes of carp, generating a turnover of around 9 million rupees (US $120,411).

Alaa and Medhat Elokda are producing tilapia and mullet in a high-density RAS facility which they have designed and built themselves.

Mikey Clarkson, who has a PhD from Stirling's Institute of Aquaculture and has recently completed his first year of managing Westmill Trout Farm, reflects on the differing options offered by the industry and academia.