The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has partnered with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries (MAAIF) to produce and distribute standard fishing and fish processing guidelines to guide the fisheries value chain. 

The guidelines, according to UNBS, are now available in all local dialects including Swahili, Acholi, Iteso, Langi and Luganda, to guide both artisanal fishers and processors, handling approximately 70% of Uganda’s total catch. 

UNBS deputy Executive Director, Patricia Ejalu said this would help the country eliminate middlemen who hitherto have been buying, repackaging and selling the country’s fish as their product. 

She said the guidelines would also help the country meet the British Retail Consortium (BRC) certification standards, hence penetrating all and any markets in the world. 

“The guidelines provide illustrations of procedures to the fishers and processors, and if well adhered to, will give us a competitive advantage because our fish is naturally sweet. The only problem we have is poor handling,” she said recently, during the handover of the simplified booklets at MAAIF, Entebbe. 

The fisheries sector continues to play a significant role in the country’s social economic growth, contributing at least 2.6% of the country’s GDP

According to Ejalu, the guidelines will provide basic information on the laws, regulations, procedures, and principles for addressing the safety and quality of fish products. 

She said the guidelines will also be applied during handling, preparation (such as drying), processing, packaging, storage, transport and marketing of fish. 

Ejalu said the documents will help the inspectors to equip fishermen with new skills on primary processing of fish which will, in turn, increase the competitiveness at both local and international levels 

She said with stricter regulations on food imported into the UK and Europe, Africans are finding it difficult to exploit the million-dollar foreign market, especially for smoked, salted and dried fish. 

The huge trade in smoked-dried fish is a consequence of the growing demand by the increasing number of Africans living in the diaspora. 

As a result, there is a growing appreciation for African food; especially demand for dried and smoked fish which appears to be going through the roof. 

Ejalu said while it was easy in recent years to send container loads of smoked fish to Europe and the UK, increasing health and bioterrorism concerns have led to very strict rules on imported food and animal produce. 

According to data from the Bank of Uganda, the country exported fish worth $176m (Shs670.7b) in the period ended December 2019. 

The exports were mainly in frozen, chilled or smoked form, although this was a decline from the $215m (Shs817b) that the country fetched from exports in the same period in 2018. 

The fisheries sector continues to play a significant role in the country’s social-economic growth, contributing at least 2.6% of the country’s GDP, and 12% of the agricultural GDP. 

The industry is, however, recovering from years of bad fishing that had led to a serious depletion in terms of production about 10 years ago. 

The Commissioner of Fisheries at MAAIF, Tom Bukenya said the ministry already had a number of guidelines, but in English, which made it difficult for artisanal fishers and processors to interpret. 

MAAIF also estimates that some 700,000 Ugandans are involved in fisheries-related employment while fish comprises the single most important source of animal protein available to the Ugandan population

“Last year, we recommended that a number of these guidelines be translated into different languages including Luganda, Langi and Swahili. Through the BRC training, with guidance from UNBS, we were able to translate the books,” he said. 

He said, for now, the fisheries department is concentrating on the Nile Patch alongside other species like Mukene, which has proved to be very marketable. 

He said over the last decade, Uganda has been able to access the market for frozen and canned fish but failed to access the market for smoked, salted and sundried fish, because of poor standards. 

According to MAAIF, Uganda exported approximately 562,000 metric tonnes of fish in 2019, 17,000 MT of which was exported to the region as smoked and sundried fish. 

27,000MT of the catch went to the international market, especially Nile Patch fillets, as frosted and chilled products.    

MAAIF also estimates that some 700,000 Ugandans are involved in fisheries-related employment while fish comprises the single most important source of animal protein available to the Ugandan population.