Fish Post-harvest loss and KAP of fishers: The case of Gilo river fisheries in Akobo District, Gambella Region, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Fisheries play a significant role in food security, livelihood, and as a source of income in developing countries. In Ethiopia, fish comes exclusively from inland water bodies including lakes, rivers, streams, reservoirs and wetlands that are of great socio-economic, ecological and scientific importance. On average the potential yield of fish in Ethiopia water bodies is estimated at 94,500 tons per year. Post-harvest loss is common in all fisheries, and this has not been studied for Gilo river fisheries. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess postharvest fish losses of Gilo fisheries in Akobo District, South western Ethiopia. Quantitative variables were computed for descriptive statistics by using SPSS, while the qualitative data was thematically presented and narrated. The study was conducted based on FAO recommendations of qualitative and quantitative field assessment methods. These methods include Informal fish loss assessment method (IFLAM), load tracking (LT) and the questionnaire loss assessment method (QLAM). A total of 150 randomly selected participants were included in the interview process from these participants, 50 of them were from each water body (Gilo River, Wagan wetland and Dualbeeb wetland). Based on respondents’ assessment the average major cause of FPHL were 76.7% lack of fishing facilities, 53.3% temperature, 10.7% processing in open air, 4.7% insect infestation, lack of transportation 24.7% and 6.7% long hour of setting gear without hauling. At the study area experienced high fish post-harvest losses due to lack of cooling facilities, high temperature, knowledge gap and insect infestation. This huge amount of loss may need intervention by stakeholders to overcome such a huge economic loss.