📌JASMINE SHAMWEPU.
The main challenges
experienced by fish business women operators are related to poor production and
inadequate and unreliable market and marketing. Recently, our feature writer
visited Lake Tanganyika and highlights more challenges in this article and the
strategic actions are undertaken to address the fishing development in Western
Tanzania.
More challenges
constraining fish production include lack of sufficient materials, low number
of trained women for target species for self-collections, low
profitability of the fish business, inadequate space for processing, and high
post-harvest loss.
Stakeholders in Lake
Tanganyika have outlined challenges that negatively affect the prosperity of
the fisheries value chain. These include fishermen, processors, and traders as
well as researchers and exporters.
"Lack of a fish
laboratory, drying, and storage facilities in the place are among the setbacks
impeding the prosperity of fishing development," explains a fisherman,
Abdul Kenge, resident of Kigoma Municipality.
He mentions other
drawbacks as inadequate finance, stealing of fishing equipment; unreliable
market; poor fishing policies and regulatory frameworks, as well as lack of
proper fishing-related education.
During a recent visit of
journalists to the Lake Tanganyika, stakeholders told them that the government
and development partners were urgently needed to invest in fishing as well as
collecting revenues from the fishing industry.
The journalists were out
to learn fisheries’ value chain activities ahead of the implementation of the
five-year multimillion fishing project for the African, Caribbean, and Pacific
areas (FISH4ACP).
Stakeholders explained more challenges impeding fishing
development as they mention randomly water pollution, lack of hygiene and
sanitation, food insecurity, poverty, stunting, lack of political will and
policy in the past, climate change impact, deficient in machinery, and lack of
appropriate technology such as cold rooms, mobile vans with cold rooms and
simple processors for small-scale fishers.
Speaking to the press
during the visit, the stakeholders referred to the challenges as issues that
hinder the realization of the true benefits of their involvement in the fishing
sector.
Mr. Ahmed Soso is the
chairman of Kibirizi Landing Site, exporters of sardines and other types of
fish. He said the region lacked a fish laboratory, forcing them to take samples
to Mwanza, spending nearly Sh 350,000 for tests on a kilo of fish.
“This amount is a huge
burden and very expensive for poor stakeholders to afford. This is after buying
a kilo of the fish at Sh15,000 - and another Sh15,000 as transport charges,” he
adds.
Two tonnes of sardines
and one tone of other fish is exported during winter, while four tonnes of
sardines and two tonnes of other fish are shipped during summer. The USA,
Canada and Malaysia are the main customers of sardines, sprat, and perch from
Lake Tanganyika, explains Ahmed Soso.
Ms. Eliza Mathew also a
sardines processor at the Kibirizi landing site said poorly developed drying
infrastructure for sardine from the lake was a massive challenge for her and
her colleagues.
She said during the high
season the number of processors and sardines becomes high as compared to
available drying infrastructure. “We pay Sh5,400 per
installed drying portion.”
Furthermore, they are
not able to equally dry fish during both winter and summer. “We hardly dry
sardines during rainy seasons, thus, reducing the quality and value of the
product,” Eliza laments.
She urges the government
to provide funding sources to enable women processors with modern technology
that will enable them to dry their fish throughout the year.
James Migwano
focuses on the lack of enough capital being another challenge that prevents
fishery from expanding the businesses and engaging in trading a large quantity
of fish and sardines from Lake Tanganyika.
He requests the
government, banks, and other financial institutions to provide them with
soft loans that will enable artisanal to graduate to another level of doing
business.
Harun Chande, Uvinza
District Fishery Officer elaborates that the government was aware of all the
challenges and has been seeking investors to improve fishing boats, storage
(warehouse), cold rooms and processing machines. “Investors will increase job
opportunities among the youth and women, help small scale fishery in generating
income through the fishing industry, improve fishing technology in fishing,
processing and storage.”
Without mention of the
list of willing investors, Chande explains that investors with capital in terms
of cash, technology and skills are expected to bring low-cost technology like
solar energy for fish processing, “Tanzanian from France has confirmed to
invest in fishery starting with low-cost solar demonstration.”
According to Chande, the
B&B Food Company Limited investor has also shown interest to invest in the
production of ice in efforts to improve storage of fishing products. “We are
also inviting the private sector investments because the government cannot do
everything alone,” he adds.
The Fisheries Resources
Protection (FRP) officer-in-charge in Buhingu Uvinza District, Mr. John Mzee,
said the government was making efforts to contain post-harvest losses in the
fisheries sector.
He said Uvinza District
has entered an agreement with the Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank (TADB)
to provide soft loans to fishermen through their cooperatives.
“We have started
providing the majority with cooperative education in order to enable them
to benefit with available opportunities in the industry,” he said.
Regarding the issue of
security on the Lake, the government explains that the army has been
responsively responding to invasions and preventing losses of fishing vessels
and equipment through the use of modern fishing vessels.
In the right move of
the government of Tanzania in collaboration with partners has launched the
multimillion Fishing Project, that
kicked off in October 2020, being led by FAO for Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific countries
(FISH4ACP).
In Tanzania the
project is focused and located around the Lake Tanganyika Sprat, Sardin and
Perch Value Chain with expected yields from fresh and processed fishes for
domestic consumption and exportation.
According to FAOs, goals
set and efforts invested are geared towards small scale fishery including women
empowerment in the fish industry.
According to
FAO-Tanzania Officer Hashim Muumin more goals include awareness-raising on the
project and the roles of FAO, TAFIRI, and other partners (EU, Germany
Government), public accountability and fostering public support. The
project is expected to fostering political support, obtaining buy-in by
showcasing the impact of the FISH4ACP in the Lake Tanganyika fisheries value
chain.
So far the project The
team has been embarked on a one-year study to ferret out relevant information
for comprehensive strategic plans for the 4-year project implementation.
Moreover, the main
reason for the study is to establish the challenges including Climate Change
impact adaptation and mitigation through fishing business around the Lake
Tanganyika.
The study will
identify problems, needs, opportunities, and challenges impeding the fishing
industry growth in Katavi, Rukwa and Kigoma Regions and share the findings
with decision-makers, determine factors affecting the establishment of small
scale fishing women groups effectively and identify and document traditional
fishing practices and needs for the improved fish industry for small scale
women and youth at Muyobozi, Kibirizi, Katonga, Kasanga, Kirando, Karangabo and
Ikola villages in Kigoma Region in the Eastern Shores of Lake Tanganyika
Hashim Muumin says the
information collected from the project area will be shared with a special focus
on lessons learned from the Lake Tanganyika value chain and other FISH4ACP
countries regarding challenges and opportunities in the development of the
value chain, “more efforts will be invested in awareness-raising on the
FISH4ACP Project and the roles of FAO and EU in unlocking the potential of Lake
Tanganyika Fisheries value chain,” adding that media reporting will be
involved for the maximum development of Lake Tanganyika Fisheries value chain
and visibility of the FISH4ACP for the Project.
For his part, the FAO
Tanzania National Professional officer, Mr. Hashim Muumin, said the world body
was looking for the challenges as important and useful information for the
successful implementation of the project.
“In collaboration with
Tanzania Fishery Research Institution (TAFIRI), we will continue collecting the
challenges and analyze them in order to enable us to set strategies of
implementation for the next four years of the project,” he said.
FAOs focus is to reduce
or eliminate the challenges and transform the sector among other priorities for
the Lake Tanganyika fisheries value chain.
Further information
reveals that the €40 million projects is being implemented by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (Fao) in 12 countries, including Zambia, Nigeria,
Zimbabwe and Gambia in Africa; Guiana and the South Dominica Republic in The
Caribbean.
In Tanzania, FAO is
collaborating with the government through the Tanzania Fisheries Research
Institute (TAFIRI), using €3 million in funding by the European Union (EU) and
Germany.
Dr. Ismael Kimeri,
Director for Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute (TAFIRI) explains that
phase-One of the project involves data collection and understanding the
challenges faced by Lake Tanganyika fisheries value chain before setting
implementation strategies in the next five years.
Lake Tanganyika is the
second most important lake for fishing activities in the region, after Lake
Victoria has 27,000 fishermen and 12,000 boats.
According to Dr
Kimerei, Lake Tanganyika is situated within the Albertline Rift Valley, the the
western branch of the East African Rift, and is confined by the mountainous
walls of the valley. “It is the largest rift lake in Africa and the
second-largest lake by volume in the world,”
Furthermore, it is the
deepest lake in Africa and holds the greatest volume of fresh water, accounting
for 16% of the world's available fresh water.
According to 2019 fish
catch statistics, Lake Tanganyika produces about 31,000 tonnes of sprat, 6,000
tonnes of sardines and 22,000 tonnes of perch annually.
In order to meet the
domestic market demand, sprat and sardines are dried while perch are smoked.
But the post-harvest losses are also very high.
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