Fish farmer wants Jamaicans to eat more tilapia

'Eat more tilapia', is what fish farmer Leon Mattis is urging Jamaicans to do, stating that they are not only more affordable but healthier.

"We control what we feed them and they grow in a natural and safe environment. The sea purifies itself but there is still a lot of garbage, oil spill and chemical disposal. The fish in the sea nah pick and choose what to eat, dem just grab anything that dem see and that can't be good for us. There are companies who let go their bio waste in the ocean and that can't be good for us," he said.

Tilapia, which is a freshwater fish and a product of Jamaica's aquaculture sector, is an alternative to captured fish from the sea.

Mattis is the owner and operator of LMC Super Fish World and Landscaping in Seaview Gardens, Kingston 11. For the past two decades, he has been supplying Jamaicans with freshwater and ornamental fish. He showed the news team a parcel of coarse salt which he said is instrumental in the upbringing and taste of the fish. Mattis has tilapias of all sizes, some so small that they are barely visible to the naked eye.

"We introduce coarse salt to their environment so the salt eliminate that micro-organism that people would feed them for them to grow fast, and it protect them and give them a better taste. When you eating them, it taste like sea fish," he said.

"The salt help to protect the coat on the fish against worm, lice, ticks and other things. All of that will contaminate the fish and once you lose one of them, you have to take it out the pond same time, and because we have a resurge system which goes out in a circular format, everything will get contaminated. That was why I always tell people not to put their hands in the water when they come here because something simple as the lotion that a person use can poison the entire system," Mattis added. His tilapias do not eat processed 'fish food'.

"We make our food for them. The same thing we consume for our health is what they get. We use like egg, mackerel, oats, chicken gizzards, spurlina and vegetable. We grow the tilapias in the ground and when them reach size, we transfer dem to a concrete area for two weeks, so they get rid of dirt, and then we carry them to our tanks. So when you eating one of my fish, you are eating a perfect fish," he said.

"We have more people going into the tilapia business. You have people who will come and buy all 80 and 90 pounds one time. The demand is there but it is not as high as I would hope. I am hoping the government will put a bit more emphasis on the small farmers like me and things will get better," he added.