Being able to sell fresh fish instead of dried fish has uplifted the communities around Lake Turkana.
Through cooperatives in Marsabit county they have been able to find markets and install cooling units. Fridges and new markets help them skip middlemen and make the supply chain more efficient.
Fishing folk selling dry fish previously were exploited by agents selling fish outside Marsabit.
Lake Turkana is the world’s largest desert lake and has plenty of fish on its eastern shore, a livelihood for nearby communities.
Team leader of the Ambero Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) project Torbe Lundsgaard said lack of refrigeration made most fisherfolk dry their fish before transporting them to distant markets where demand for dried fish is high.
The CCA project works with fishing communities along Lake Turkana and the fish marketing cooperative. It is turning fishing and selling into a profitable business with greater capacity because of refrigeration.
At least 3,000 fishermen are organised in beach management units. Traditionally they fished from their rafts and dried them for sale in Busia and Kisumu markets.
“This way of handling fish is not efficient as it reduces the value of the fish,” Lundsgaard says.
The Ambero project was started in 2015 at Loiyangalani, a small town on the lake’s southeastern coast of in Marsabit county.
The project aims to make fishing communities more resilient to climate change. To make fishing sustainable, breeding sites must be protected and nets of proper mesh size — that don’t capture immatrue fish — must be enforced.
The lake environment too must be protected and encroachment must be prevented.
Manage prices
Tuke Dabelo, senior adviser for the Ambero CCA project, says they used to sell dried fish on credit for very low prices of up to five shillings per fish. The fisherfolk didkn’t know to whom they were selling to.
“We came up with different market lines for fresh fish,” Dabelo says. They came up with the cooperative that collectively markets the fish and manages the prices, hence ,giving more direct cash than credit.
While a drish fish might sell for five shillings, a fresh one can fetch as much as Sh100 shillings. People used to have to wait for merchants to move to and from Busia and Kisumu.
Now the fishing communities mostly sell fresh fish. Though dry fish prices have increased to Sh30 per fish, fresh fish is still a better bet.
The Loiyangalani Cooperative Society secretary says they now have solar cooling systems through the help of the CCA project.
They have trainings, benchmarking trips and new markets.
“Through this project we are making more and improving our lifestyles. The capacity to the beach management units will go a long way in sustainable development,” the head of the cooperate notes Loporkwe notes.
Fresh fish collection and processing requires special care and attention from the fishing site to the eating points. Fish have a longer shelf-life before they readh the market.
Lundsgaard says they installed cold stores using solar energy that provide storage for collected fresh fish from fisher folk.
Mobile phones
The storage units make it easy to manage and process fish through cold value chain right from the lake to the market.
“Mobile phone communication has made orders and dispatch easier. Loiyangalani has a better communication network and this has linked the cooperative supplies to the markets in Marsabit town,” Lundsgaard says.
Loiyangalani town is a centre for fresh fish collection and processing since it has an access road from Marsabit town and Isiolo town pn the the new road from the wind power firm that joins the highway in Laisamis.
Quick and higher sales
Fresh fish from Loiyangalani is mostly transported in cooler boxes on buses operating daily to Marsabit town. Fresh fish is constantly available.
“This is a paradigm shift for fisherfolk who were previously in risk of poor revenue from agents who exploited them through the dry fish markets outside Marsabit. Now they are making quick and higher sales through the coopeative,” Lundsgaard says.
Eateries have increased in Marsabit and so has demand for fresf fish
The project has also increased the Marsabit County Fisheries Deparment’s capacity to invest in managing fish resources and marketing from Lake Turkana.
Through project trainings and investments, there’s improved coordination and linkages among players in fresh fish management and marketing. This ranges from beach managements units to the cooperative to retail markets in Marsabit Town.
Marsabit Fisheries CEC Hawo Shanko Abdullah says Lake Turkana is one of the county’s resources.
“Through the Ambero project we have received around Sh110 million and purchased 20 fishing boats, and 40 freezers to scale up the fisheries subsector,” Abdullah said.
Lake Turkana is about 249km by 30 to 48km. It is only 35m deep. Communities along the lake include Elmolo, Turkana and Dassanach.
Many of fisherfolks still use traditional methods of fishing and processing ifresh fish from the lake for domestic use.