Analysis of fish value chain: the case of gilgel gibe dam i reservoir southwest of Ethiopia

Abstract

The fishery science in Ethiopia is at infant stage and its value chain is not such studied in the country. This study was aimed at analysis of fish value chain in Gilgel Gibe dam I reservoir Southwest of Ethiopia with specific objectives of mapping fish value chain and identify the major actors, investigating the fish market channels and performance, analyzing the determinants of value addition on fish by the producers and analyzing the determinants of fish supply to the market. A three stage sampling procedure which includes both purposive and random sampling were used to select sample respondents. Primary data were collected from 128 randomly selected individuals’ interview using structured questionnaire via enumerators and secondary data were acquired from published and unpublished sources. Descriptive statistics and econometric analysis were used to analyze the data. The result of value chain analysis shows that the direct fish value chain actors of this study area are fishermen, local collectors, fishery cooperatives, whole sellers, retailer and restaurants and hotels while the major enablers are WoA, and WA, NGO’s, BoA, MFI research center and Jimma university. The fish marketing channels and performance analysis result shows 196,885 kg of fish were produced by the respondent which is 79% passed through twelve main alternative marketing channels and 16.4 % was consumed by producer. The result of GMM shows the producer get the higher margin (at channel II and XII which is 75% and 73.7%) when they sell to cooperatives and collectors and in general restaurants and hotels get the highest margin in this fish value chain(i.e. 142-146%). The result of binary logit model indicated that the fish value addition is significantly affected by education level, fishing equipment, extension service, access to market information and credit service. The multiple linear regression model results also indicated that volume of fish supply is positively and significantly affected by fishing experience, price of fish in 2015, producer membership to fishery cooperative and access to credit service. Therefore; it needs strong government intervention on supporting fishermen in providing modern input and technologies, processing and value addition, empowering fishery cooperatives, strengthening of market extension and linking them with financial service provider and improving extension system are recommended to accelerate the fishery value chain’s development thus income of individual fishermen could be enhanced