NAIROBI, KENYA – Every week, fish trader George Otieno takes an overnight bus from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to Mbita Point to buy fish.
Mbita Point, a town about 400 kilometers (250 miles) away, is on the shores of Lake Victoria, a major source of fish in the country. The bus ride takes eight hours and costs Otieno 1,000 Kenyan shillings ($11.50) each way, he says.
Otieno, a 32-year-old father of two children, has to travel by night so he can arrive early in the morning in Mbita Point, where fishermen start selling their catch at 5 a.m. He buys 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of fresh fish and immediately starts looking for a fisherman’s kiln he can use to smoke them.
This traditional preservation method prevents the fish from spoiling during his trek back to Nairobi, where he sells them at the nation’s largest fish market.
“Selling fish is a high-risk business, as they go bad very quickly,” Otieno says. “We have to do whatever we can to reduce the risk.”
Otieno learned the fish business from his mother. He used to help her as she smoked fish and sold them at the market. When he completed high school, he started his own fish business seven years ago.
Otieno has recognized the need to develop his trade beyond his mother’s traditional preservation techniques. If he had more modern preservation equipment, such as a deep freezer, he would save time and could earn more money by selling fresh fish, he says. But he cannot afford to invest in one.
“I once tried selling fresh fish, but it was too difficult to do so without a big refrigerator,” he says. “Perhaps I’ll go back to it once I get enough capital to buy the equipment.”
Because there are no lakes in Nairobi, most traders must use traditional preservation methods to ensure fish does not spoil during transportation from faraway towns. The required time, money and energy force them to charge customers high prices, especially for fresh fish. Small-scale entrepreneurs, who constitute the majority of traders, want to use modern preservation methods but say ice is unavailable to keep iceboxes cool and they cannot afford deep freezers. As they save to invest in modern methods, the government regulates vendors throughout the capital to ensure the safety of fish for consumers.
Kenya’s population grew from 33 million in 2002 to 43.18 million in 2012, according to the World Bank.
In order to meet the increasing demand for food to support this growing population, it is crucial to reduce food loss after harvesting, especially for highly perishable fish and seafood, according to the 2010-2011 annual report from the governmental Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute. The report states that although it is difficult to estimate the exact scale of the problem, the post-harvest losses of fish – in terms of both quantity and quality – are enormous.
Vendors sell about 35 metric tons (40 short tons) of fish every day in Nairobi’s Gikomba market, the biggest fish market in the country, says George Kamau, the Nairobi county director of fisheries for the State Department of Fisheries, in a phone interview. Small-scale sellers make up the majority of vendors in Nairobi.
Without access to modern preservation technology, small-scale fish sellers must rely on traditional methods of preservation, which are time-consuming and eat into profits.
To smoke his fish, Otieno borrows a rectangular, clay-walled kiln from the fisherman he buys his stock from in Mbita Point, he says. He purchases firewood for 200 shillings ($2.30) to fuel the kiln.
Otieno places wire mesh on the top of the uncovered kiln. He then cuts the fish open, removes the internal organs and places the fish on the wire mesh. He covers them with a heavy gunnysack.
“The bag traps the smoke inside so that it can dry the fish slowly,” he explains.
He then lights a fire with both wet and dry wood, and the wet wood’s moisture produces a lot of smoke in the kiln, drying the fish. The color of the fish changes slowly from silver-gray to dark brown as it dries.
Otieno pokes the fish with a sharp object to determine whether it is dry enough, he says. After six hours of smoking, he is sure the fish is ready for transport.
Otieno packs the smoked fish in reed baskets for the journey back to Nairobi. It costs him another eight hours and 1,000 shillings ($11.50).
The journey to Lake Victoria is onerous enough, but when fish shortages there constrict supply, Otieno must look even farther, to Lodwar. A town in northern Kenya near Lake Turkana, Lodwar is 630 kilometers (400 miles) from Nairobi.
Because of the long distance, Otiento sometimes makes arrangements with fishermen there to smoke the fish and to send them to him by bus, which is cheaper than going himself. Each way of the bus journey to Lodwar costs 2,000 shillings ($23) and takes 12 hours.
But Otieno still prefers to go himself so he can dry the fish, in which cases he rarely has to throw any away, he says. When he does not smoke the fish himself, he sometimes loses almost half of his stock because the fishermen he buys it from rush the smoking process.
“Sometimes the fishermen do it in a hurry,” he says. “Half-dried fish goes bad quickly, and I end up throwing it away. That’s why I prefer going all the way to the lakeside.”
In Nairobi, he sells the fish at Gikomba market. Smoked fish could last for about two weeks, he says. But he usually sells his stock within three days. After deducting his costs, his profit ranges between 5,000 shillings ($60) and 7,000 shillings ($80) per week.
Lake Naivasha is closer to Nairobi, but the fish are smaller and not always available, Otieno says.
Some small-scale traders who buy their fish closer to the city use other traditional methods of preservation because of the lack of kilns in the city.
Susan Wanjiru lives at the shores of Lake Naivasha, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Nairobi. After buying fresh fish every evening, she spreads them on a sheet of plastic on the cement floor of a one-room store next to her house, she says.
She rents the room from a landowner for about 1,000 shillings ($11.50) every month. When she is pricing her fish, she includes this cost.
The cool floor of the room preserves the fish overnight, she says. Her method can preserve the fish for more than 24 hours, so she can sell them the next day as fresh fish.
“I leave them overnight, and in the morning, they are usually still fresh,” she says. “I pack them in plastic cases, then take them to the market in Nairobi.”
She does not sell her entire stock on most days. To avoid posting a loss, she sells the remainder at a discounted price to Maureen Anyango, a trader who sells the fish in Nairobi’s Kibera slum.
Anyango cuts the fish open, removes the internal organs and waits for the evening, when she deep fries them in a pan over an open fire and sells them by the roadside in the slum.
“The fried fish could last up to a week,” Anyango says.
But this preservation method is laborious and expensive.
“Frying fish involves a lot of work,” Anyango says. “I have to light a charcoal or firewood stove at a roadside full of people, then fry the fish, one after another. The remaining oil has to be thrown away. I spend a lot on charcoal and oil, and I cannot increase the price of fish due to competition.”
Because traditional methods of preservation are labor- and capital-intensive for traders and not always effective, fish – and especially fresh fish – is an expensive delicacy for Nairobi consumers.
Because of the cost of transport to Lodwar and Mbita Point, the prices of Otieno’s fish are high for local residents. For example, he sells a small piece of smoked tilapia from Mbita Point for 150 shillings ($1.70).
June Akinyi, a Nairobi resident, says she can afford to buy fish only two times per month. She buys smoked fish because it is cheaper than fresh and fried fish and has been her delicacy since childhood.
Agatha Ngotho, a mother of two children, says she can afford to buy fish only at the end of the month when her husband gets his salary or when they have special events such as birthdays and Christmas parties. Although she prefers fresh fish, she buys the fried ones because they are cheaper.
At Gikomba market, the prices are 500 shillings ($5.75) for one fresh fish, 300 shillings ($3.50) for a fried fish and 150 shillings ($1.70) for a dried fish, she says.
Dried fish, including smoked fish, is cheaper but less common than fried fish. Smoked fish may be less common because of the lengthy preservation process, Otieno says.
Kamau of the State Department of Fisheries says a lot of fish goes to waste when traders use traditional preservation methods. He urges traders to invest in iceboxes, or coolers, which he says are not too expensive. These would allow traders to sell fresh fish, which is in high demand among Nairobi’s growing middle class.
A small commercial icebox that holds 100 liters (25 gallons) costs 1,800 shillings ($20) in local shops. Traders must also buy ice to pack into the coolers.
Anyango says she has never thought of buying a modern icebox, but she would be happy to be able to have one so she could buy and sell fresh fish. This would save her the time and effort of frying and the cost of oil and charcoal.
But other small-scale traders say ice is not abundantly available to fill the coolers. More expensive modern methods, such as freezers, would be more effective, but they cannot afford them.
Wanjiru, who has been in the trade for a year, says she is considering buying an icebox, which would save her the cost of renting a room to dry her fish. But she must first find out whether ice is easy to find and affordable in Naivasha. She also wants to buy a freezer, but that would be more expensive.
An icebox, though affordable for Otieno, would not suffice for his business, he says. He also does not want to endure the daily hassle of buying ice cubes, which are available in few shops in Nairobi. Most effective would be a deep freezer to carry his stock, but that costs 60,000 shillings ($700).
There are trucks that deliver fish to mid-sized businesses in Gikomba market, but the trucks are not refrigerated, Otieno says. If he had a deep freezer, he would send it to the fishermen at the lakes on a truck, and the fishermen would fill it with fresh fish and send it back.
Selling fresh fish in this manner would save him from the long and tiring bus trips he makes every week, he says. It would also save him the cost of transport and firewood, leading to better profits.
In addition to being time-consuming for traders and raising prices for customers, traditional preservation methods – especially frying – also raise consumer health concerns.
The State Department of Fisheries has posted at least six officers at Gikomba market and other major fish markets to ensure the fish for sale is fit for human consumption, Kamau says. The officers monitor all traders at the fish markets to ensure they do not sell rotten fish. So far, they have not had a reason to be concerned about the safety of dried fish.
On the other hand, the frying method of preserving and selling fish, which is prevalent in slums, is a big challenge to the State Department of Fisheries, Kamau says.
“It is very hard to monitor such traders because they do not have a permanent point of sale,” Kamau says. “They move from place to place depending on the number of customers they get.”
Even when his department intervenes with unsafe sellers, the changes do not last, he says.
“When we ask them to cover the frying pans to avoid contamination, they do so for a few days then go back to their old ways,” he says. “When we close down their businesses, they say the government is bad.”
Anyango tries to ensure the fish is safe for human consumption, as she would lose customers if she sold rotten fish, she says.
“The government should support us instead of accusing us of selling bad food,” she says. “Were it not for small-scale fish traders like me, slum residents in Nairobi would never eat fish.”
Ngotho buys fried fish and has never been concerned about its safety because she buys from one trader whom she trusts, she says. She is happy that the government monitors the fish traders to ensure safety, as some traders could be selling unhealthy food.
“Some traders use recycled oil while frying to save on costs, and this is very bad,” she says.
If traders, and especially sellers who fry fish in slums, would invest in more modern equipment, the State Department of Fisheries would not have to conduct such frequent raids on the businesses, Kamau says.
Otieno, Anyango and Wanjiru say they would like to buy modern preservation equipment when they get enough capital.
“I started very small and have made a lot of progress,” Otieno says. “I’m sure in a year or two, I will be in a position to afford a freezer. I will then start selling fresh fish.”
This story was written with the support of The African Story Challenge @AfricanMediaInitiative.
