Enhancing Smallholder Household income Through Aquaculture: the Case of Chingale Area in Southern Malawi

Although smallholder pond aquaculture in Malawi has significant potential to offset the current fish supply deficit of 27000 tons/year, its production is low (800 tons/year. The major constraints for aquaculture production are: lack of fast growing species; poor access to formulated feed; poor knowledge on modern fish farming practices, and poor access to attractive urban markets, among others. If these constraints were addressed and a nucleus of productive and profitable fish farms was established, fish production would increase and unlock the entrepreneurial capacity of smallholder farmers. This paper examines the impact of an aquaculture technology package on fish production and income in Chingale, Southern Malawi. The package included: a fast growing strain of Oreochromis shiranus, a program to improve access to quality seed through establishment of community fingerling producers and to link farmers to urban fish traders and consumers. The results show that with community hatcheries and an appropriate distribution model, fingerling mortality and transport costs reduced; access to cheaper quality fingerlings for surrounding communities improved. However in order to produce high quality seed, farmers require initial investment in quality control that also minimizes loss of genetic potential of the brood stock. The use of quality fingerlings and a fast growing fish strain increased fish production and made it more feasible to link farmers to urban fish buyers, where farmers obtained higher prices than they normally get from village markets. The paper concludes that fish production and household income can improve if complementary technologies are implemented as a package.Keywords: Fisheries Economics, Fish and Aquaculture Sectors Developmen

Solar tent dryers lead to gender equality in the fish value chain

French version available in IDRC Digital LibraryThe use of fish solar tent dryers has enabled more profitable, formal markets where dried fish products are sold at higher prices than at local markets. When compared to traditional sun drying methods, the solar tent technology has reduced the time for women to dry fish by more than 50%. Due to the positive impacts of training sessions which use gender transformative approaches (GTA) trainings, a second session on gender and leadership training saw an increase in male participation (128 men and 97 women). The solar tent dryers have been effective in improving economic and social aspects of fish processors’ work.Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund (CULTIAF

Gender differences in willingness to pay for capital-intensive agricultural technologies : the case of fish solar tent dryers in Malawi

To reduce fish postharvest losses, a fish solar tent dryer (image included) is being promoted along Lake Malawi. This paper analyses gender disparities in fish processors’ conditional willingness to pay (WTP), along with their willingness to pay towards a common or co-owned asset. Women have more endowments associated with a high probability of WTP, such as knowledge of the solar tent dryer, while men have more assets (such as education, selling to distant markets and fishing assets) and are therefore willing and able to pay a higher cost in dollars. Women lack access to income, education, capital, and access to markets

Nudging fisheries and aquaculture research towards food systems

Food system is a powerful concept for understanding and responding to nutrition and sustainability challenges. Food systems integrate social, economic, environmental and health aspects of food production through to consumption. Aquatic foods are an essential part of food systems providing an accessible source of nutrition for millions of people. Yet, it is unclear to what degree research across diverse disciplines concerning aquatic foods has engaged food systems, and the value this concept has added. We conducted a systematic review of fisheries, aquaculture and aquatic food literature (2017–2019) to determine the following: the characteristics of this research; the food systems components and interrelations with which research engaged; and the insights generated on nutrition, justice, sustainability and climate change. Sixty five of the 88 reviewed articles focussed on production and supply chains, with 23 considering human nutrition. Only 13% of studies examined low- and middle-income countries that are most vulnerable to undernutrition. One third of articles looked beyond finfish to other aquatic foods, which illuminated values of local knowledge systems and diverse foods for nutrition. When aggregated, reviewed articles examined the full range of food system drivers—biophysical and environmental (34%), demographic (24%) and socio-cultural (27%)—but rarely examined interactions between drivers. Future research that examines a diversity of species in diets, system-wide flows of nutrients, trade-offs amongst objectives, and the nutritional needs of vulnerable social groups would be nudging closer to the ambitions of the food systems concept, which is necessary to address the global challenges of equity, nutrition and sustainability

A lake without water

This thesis explores the human-environment interaction within the climate-sensitive socio-ecological system of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. It uses the livelihoods framework to analyse various coping strategies to resource scarcity due to lake recessions. The main aim is to understand the processes by which decision-making takes place and the influence of various agents of change on coping with environmental shocks, i.e. water recessions. Lake Chilwa undergoes periodic water recessions with up to twelve incidents recorded between 1900 and 2012. While the lake and its wetland is an economic aquatic agriculture system in between recessions, it is unclear how households around the system survive during the periods of water recessions. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted between March 2012 and December 2013 on Chisi Island of Lake Chilwa to evaluate the coping strategies and their major drivers in responding to the periodic lake recessions. Using interpretive analysis, the findings show that people from the Lake Chilwa socio-ecological system have lived in anticipation of periodic environmental shocks due to their deep historical knowledge of the lake level and its fluctuations. This knowledge has been passed from generation to generation. Results further show that the main coping strategies that have stood the test of time for every recession are based on reciprocity and redistribution. These include sharing through kinship ties, hunting wild birds and farming. In many cases coping strategies for each specific recession are driven by political, social and economic factors prevailing at that particular period. Given these conditions, different agents (individuals or communities) make choices designed to maximise their own interests as they scramble to access scarce resources. Although natural resources in these systems are fundamental assets in rural livelihoods, accessing them in times of scarcity requires better governance systems that consider social, political and economic contexts

Improved processing and marketing of healthy fish products in inland fisheries in Malawi - final technical report

The objective was to design, test and promote solar tent dryers to reduce postharvest fish losses while increasing economic gains and reducing the use of forest resources. Fish processors attached high values to sensory quality improvements and postharvest loss reduction attributes of solar tent drying. The project has increased awareness of solar tent dryers in the project area from 14% to 88%. There are now 188 individuals using solar tent dryers out of which 123 are women. Additional benefits of adoption of solar tent dryers are through improvements in the supply of quality fish to the country