Background
The sustainable expansion of small-scale fish farming in Zambia is hindered by feed scarcity, unsustainability, and high costs. To overcome these challenges, it is necessary to develop locally-sourced, sustainable feed ingredients and build local capacity for testing and creating new feed solutions. However, many local feed millers and smallholder fish farmers lack the skills to access, evaluate, and improve local ingredients, as well as formulate balanced diets. A new WorldFish-led, Norad-funded project “Development and Scaling of Sustainable Feeds for Resilient Aquatic Food Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (FASA)” is being implemented in Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya, with additional research activities conducted at WorldFish headquarters (Malaysia) and SLU (Sweden).
WorldFish and SLU are seeking a nationally recruited PhD student to support the achievement of the project goal in Zambia. During this project, the PhD student will investigate the nutritional qualities of locally-available feed ingredients, improve their quality through processing technologies, screen ingredients using Artemia system for nutraceutical properties, and create novel, cost-effective, and sustainable feed formulations that meet the nutritional requirements of both wild-type and improved strains of farmed fish species (mainly Tilapia) in Zambia. In addition, the PhD student in close association with key stakeholders in the country (private feed companies, NGOs) will also aid in the transfer of the knowledge gained through this project to local feed millers and fish farmers.
The successful candidate has a joint affiliation with WorldFish Zambia office and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden and will conduct their research within the framework of Norad-funded FASA project led by WorldFish. The candidate will be based in Zambia with WorldFish for approximately 18 months to conduct field experiments and in Sweden with the Department of Animal Nutrition and Management at SLU for approximately 30 months to participate and complete the required PhD courses, write a PhD research proposal, complete PhD experimental works, write scientific papers, and defend the PhD thesis.
Responsibilities
- Conduct course work at SLU.
- Write a PhD research proposal.
- Design and conduct scientific experiments at SLU and Zambia.
- Write scientific, technical and outreach articles.
- Present at workshops and conferences.
- Write and defend the PhD thesis.
- Work collaboratively with the other technicians and scientists at WorldFish and SLU.
- Develop productive partnerships to further feeds research in Zambia, for the adoption of the innovation resulting from the PhD research.
- Build productive relations with investors and development partners from public and private sectors for scaling out research results in Zambia.
- Mentor BSc/MSc students and interns from national and international universities and organization, who are involved in the project.
- Plan, organize, execute and report on PhD project progress in dialogue with senior as well as junior staff/employees and external partners.
- Contribute to resource mobilization for further feeds work in Zambia and in other WF countries.
- Support WorldFish country office in Zambia.