One of the greatest beneficiaries of the 2015/2016 financial year Budget estimates is the agricultural sector, and rightfully so, as the sector remains the backbone of the country’s development. Although most of the allocation will go towards boosting irrigation farming, which is a timely shift from rain-fed agriculture, there is need to focus on other sub-sectors to guarantee food security for the country.
One such sector is fisheries, which contributes more than 0.5 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product. The figure could double if value addition at the various stages of the supply chain is considered and post-harvest losses minimised.
Omena, whose scientific name is Rastreneobola argentea, contributes nearly 50 per cent to the total fish catch of over 160,000 tonnes in Kenya’s Lake Victoria. The fish experiences huge post-harvest losses.
Although the government has earmarked inland, marine and fish farming value chains as means for achieving food and nutrition security and economic development, little has been done to harness omena’s full potential.
Currently, 20 to 50 per cent of the omena catch is lost during processing. Addressing factors that cause losses can increase its supply, incomes and food and nutrition security for the poor since omena is generally cheaper than the other types of fishes. Omena supplements the diet of poor and malnourished children when eaten whole or used in food fortification.
About 30 per cent of the catch is used for domestic consumption. The rest is used for animal feeds. It is estimated that over two million people depend on the omena processing chain for their livelihoods.
One important use of Omena is in food fortifications. Due to its rich source of proteins, vitamins and minerals, the sun dried product is usually ground into a powder, which can stand alone as a product or can be used for preparations of special meals, soups and stews, among others. Omena is rich in proteins and anti-oxidants that possess important life functions. Extracts from Omena can, therefore, be used to enrich food systems, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products, which can promote the prevention of chronic diseases such as cancer. In addition, a greater supply of the fish can allow the extraction and processing of other by-products such as cosmetics, lubricants, varnishes, soap and margarine. Omena can therefore provide the country lucrative trade in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products and boost foreign exchange.
The main sources of omena are in Bondo, Busia and Suba counties with the latter accounting for about 70 per cent of production. On the other hand, markets for human consumption are in Western and Nyanza regions while those for the animal feed industry are Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Mombasa and Thika among other towns in the country. However, with the right infrastructure and proper management, omena and its products can be transported to areas hard hit by drought and starvation. Omena business not only requires a low startup capital but the dried product also has a long shelf life of six months.
Although the government, United States Assistance for International Development, the European Union and other players are involved in the development of the fish industry, their initiatives are inadequate in addressing the current problems, which cut across many sectors of the economy.
A lot of good quality omena is lost because of contamination during capture. Further deterioration of the catch occurs from heat and microorganisms because fishermen do not access ice for freezing omena due to lack of electricity and other infrastructures at beaches.
The process of sun drying using improved racks is yet to be adopted by many small scale women processors. Another problem is poor access to savings and credit cooperatives mainly because most the traders do not meet loan requirements of financial institutions. This means small scale traders and processors cannot make modest savings to invest in value adding technologies.
For omena to be used to supplement food reserves in the country and pharmeceutical and industrial products, there is need to invest in transportation and storage technologies that ensure maintenance of physical, biological and food safety standards. Although the Ministry of Public Health issues health certificates to all categories of stakeholders that are involved in commercial handling and exploitation of fish or omena, no education on safe fish storage, handling and transportation is provided to the businessmen. There is also no enforcement of such safety standards.
For industrial processors, there is lack of policy and legal framework for quality standards for the domestic, regional and international markets. The other critical issues concern sustainability in the use of the resource. The policy should ensure limits and access rights to the local community of fish catch.
To further develop the industry, policy and legal framework for land use should be changed to facilitate infrastructure development at beaches. Technical specifications for processing, transporting, distributing and marketing should be developed and agreed upon by stakeholders to ensure high product quality and food safety meeting international standards.
Market surveys for consumer preferences for different market segments for omena should be conducted and products preferred by consumers be developed, tested and marketed to promote value addition and minimize losses.
Private-public partnerships, community-based organisations and key policy and technical stakeholders should provide technical knowledge on omena processing, marketing, storage and handling to traders while at the same providing access to technology and capital.
The writer is an analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis
