The message from African artisanal fishers to the FAO: "Sardinella should be reserved for small-scale fishers, for human consumption, not for fishmeal"

From 5 to 7 December 2023, the FAO, in collaboration with the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients and the Iceland Ocean Cluster, organised a workshop in Accra (Ghana) on the theme: "Optimising food and nutritional security and the benefits of small pelagic species production in sub-Saharan Africa".

This follows a report commissioned by the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF) on the "Socio-economic and biological impacts of the fish feed industry in sub-Saharan Africa", published in 2022. The aim was to gain a better understanding of the challenges posed by the expansion of the fishmeal and fish oil industry in sub-Saharan Africa, and to identify, from studies carried out in 9 countries, the possible drivers, outcomes and trade-offs with the fishmeal industry.

Recommendations of the cecaf report

1. Regulate and limit the number, capacity and production of the FBF industry based on the status of fish stocks and need for fish for human consumption.
The study called for the effective regulation of the FBF in sub-Saharan Africa in a way that will both ensure the sustainable exploitation of small pelagics, and privilege food security and better nutrition.

2. Promote effective fish harvesting and post-harvesting practices to reduce bycatches and losses being directed to fishmeal production. Part of the fish used for FBF production are made of bycatches and avoidable fish waste “that could be vital for human consumption.” The study notes that reducing bycatches will “require an effective monitoring and surveillance system to ensure compliance with regulations”; and “to reduce post-harvest losses will require to invest in adequate fish storage and transport infrastructure as well as in processing technologies.”

3. Purposively regulate the price for edible fish.
To guarantee its supply of fish (generally edible) as raw materials, the FBF industry often offers higher prices that are profitable for fishers but hamper the possibility of local processors and consumers buying enough fish for their needs to fulfil demand for direct human consumption of fish. Consequently, direct political intervention is needed to purposively regulate the fish price to reduce the harmful competition between the FBF industry and other fish users.

Although this study provided a good initial overview of the fish feed industry and its impact, the organisers of the Ghana workshop felt that there were many aspects that still needed to be discussed with a wide range of stakeholders and experts, including how to increase the benefits derived from small pelagics for food and nutrition security and livelihoods, while managing trade-offs with demand for fishmeal and fish oil)?

"FEEDING THE RICH MAN'S FISH WITH THE POOR MAN'S FISH"

CAOPA and CFFA made a joint presentation to the workshop, first alerting about how the decline of sardinella in West Africa affects fishers, women fish processors and consumers. Taking the example of Senegal, where the per capita availability of small pelagics has declined from 16 kg/year in 2009 (with 217,000 tonnes of small pelagics placed on the market) to 9 kg per year in 2018 (with 139,000 tonnes placed on the market), Mr Dawda Saine (Gambia), CAOPA General Secretary, highlighted that “this situation is found in several West African countries, in particular Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia. At the same time, we see that the production of fishmeal is increasing.”

Mrs Raissa Nadège Leka Madou (Cote d’Ivoire) stressed that, as small pelagics caught in Senegal and Mauritania are exported in neighboring countries, the scarcity of sardinellas available for human consumption in these countries puts at risk the food security of the whole region: “Why take the food out of the mouths of the poor in West Africa to feed those whose stomachs are already full, in rich countries where people eat fish raised with fishmeal coming from here?”

Dawda Saine, Secretary General of CAOPA, spoke of two causes of the food crisis: the lack of shared management and the growing number of fishmeal and fish oil factories. Photo: CAOPA.

Mr Saine and Ms Madou then went on to explain the three main causes of this emerging food crisis from the point of view of African small-scale fisheries: the lack of concerted management, the proliferation of fishmeal and fish oil factories, and the lack of investment in the human consumption sector. Mr Saine began by pointing out that "small pelagics are a shared resource, but the countries concerned are not working together to set total allowable catches or quotas for each country."

“Since 2012, CAOPA has been calling on the FAO to promote concerted management of small pelagics”, reminds Gaoussou Gueye (Sénégal), president of CAOPA. “This institutional inertia for more than ten years is not acceptable.” He suggested starting with a "small, concrete step": firstly, to set up a team of Mauritanian, Senegalese and Gambian scientists to advise the governments on the measures to be taken to protect small pelagics, in particular the sardinella. He also called on the FAO to promote exchanges between Mauritania and Senegal on the implementation of their respective sardinella management plans, and to encourage the Gambia to do the same: “We need to continue our efforts, particularly through CECAF, to ensure concerted management of these small pelagic resources.”

At the root of the problem, underlined Mr Saine, there is also the growing number of factories, driven by demand for fishmeal and fish oil in China, Norway, Turkey (for salmon aquaculture) and France (for cosmetics): For artisanal fishers, the use of sardinella for fishmeal should be banned completely. Given the difficulty of controlling this at factory level, access to sardinella should be exclusively reserved for artisanal pirogues fishing for human consumption. “For us, it is inconceivable to eco-label fishmeal and fish oil made from over-exploited sardinella.”

INVESTMENT IN FISH CONSERVATION AND DISTRIBUTION

Mrs Raissa highlighted that the processing of small pelagics into fishmeal doesn’t even help small scale fish farmers in Africa: “the paradox is that sardinella, rather than feeding Africans, is processed into fishmeal, exported to China, where it feeds tilapia, which is then imported to our countries and sold cheaper than our locally farmed tilapia. In Ivory Coast, a kilo of locally farmed tilapia costs 3000 CFA francs, whilst a kilo of tilapia ‘made in China’ only costs 1200 CFA per kilo. How is that helping anyone in Africa?”

Raissa Madou, an Ivorian fish processor and member of CAOPA, spoke of the lack of investment in the human consumption value chain. Photo: CAOPA.

In her view, what is needed are investments in the small pelagic value chain for human consumption. Currently, the countries concerned only allow, for fishmeal/fishoil factories, the use of fish that is not fit for human consumption. However, there is a lack of investment in infrastructure for conservation and artisanal processing, as well as in means of transporting processed and unprocessed products throughout the region. As a result, a lot of sardinella that could be consumed by the local population if it were properly preserved, processed and transported, ends up as waste in fishmeal factories.

At the end of the day, only such investments will ensure that the contribution of small pelagics to food security in the region is optimised. Under one condition: “Sardinella must be reserved for artisanal fishers, for human consumption, not for fishmeal” concluded Mr Gaoussou Gueye.

Banner photo: Catches from a beach seine at Agoué, Benin, by CFFA.

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