<<Print>>

The Ghana Aquaculture Association is urging public calm after it emerged that at least 18,000 tonnes tilapia died en masse at a fish farm and had to be destroyed.

President of the Association, Jennifer Sodji, has said part of the fish farm, Fujian Farm -- a Chinese owned company -- at Asutsuare in the Greater Accra Region, has since been shut down pending further investigations.

“We realised that the fishes were dying and then we alerted the Fisheries Commission. EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency] also moved in there to investigate the fish at the farm. The general public is not supposed to be worried about it,” she told Accra-based Citi FM.
 
The cause of tilapia mortality is not yet known. But some reports indicate that the tilapia died because they may be a strain of a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) that could not survive conditions in the fish ponds in Accra.

Persons with insights into fish farming also say they suspect that there was a toxic residue in the pond due to “massive organic loading”.

This “organic loading”, according to experts, can be caused by excessive feed input per unit volume of water, poor water exchange per the expanse of installed cages and the cool surface temperature due to extended cloud cover caused by persistent rainfall.

Tilapia is a popular Ghanaian delicacy. Banku and tilapia is a common dish on the long list of cherished Ghanaian cuisines.

But Some residents of the area, who got information about the unwholesome fish being buried, rushed to the scene Friday morning and managed to smuggle out some of the strain of dead tilapia suspected to be genetically modified.
 
VIDEO-