Enhanced Fish Market Information Service (EFMIS)
Using modern communication technology to enhance fish trade in Lake Victoria
Background
Lake Victoria is Kenya’s most important fishery resource, producing fish valued at about US$ 70 million and earning US$ 50 million from fish exports. The lake supports over 50,000 fishers, 300,000 local fish processors and traders, 7 fish processing firms and many primary cooperative type organizations, including; 30 small fishermen cooperative societies, 300 beach management units and over 350 women fish trader associations. Although Lake Victoria region is well covered by
mobile phone networks in Kenya, the fishing community has not taken advantage of this technology to market fish. As a result fish pricing is not transparent, marketing costs are high and there is heavy post-harvest fish losses.
About the project
EFMIS is a Market Information Service project for the fisheries sector. The project is implemented by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) and based at KMFRI Kisumu Centre on Nkrumah Road, Kisumu. KMFRI is collaborating in this project with fisheries organizations of Lake Victoria (Fisheries Cooperatives, Beach Management Units and Women Fish Traders Associations); Associati
on of Fish Processors and Exporters of Kenya (AFIPEK) and the Ministry of Fisheries Development.
Sponsors
EFMIS is supported by the International Labour Organization (ILO) through its Cooperative Facility for Africa (CoopAfrica) program. CoopAfrica is a regional technical cooperation program of the ILO for the development of cooperatives in Africa and the promotion of the decent work agenda. The fund has been awarded to KMFRI through an open and transparent competitive grant system.
Project aims and strategy
EFMIS aims to improve the business capacity and incomes of Lake Victoria’s fisher community (BMUs, cooperatives, fishermen, fish traders and fish processors) by enabling them to get current fish market information easily and cheaply. The project involves setting up a system for collecting key market information using mobile phones in real time (daily, by the hour) at about 150 fish landing sites around the lake, markets and fish processing firms. The information is relayed to a data centre located at KMFRI in Kisumu, where it is synthesized, packaged and made accessible to beneficiaries on mobile phones principally by SMS (and later will include other media, such as local radio, newspapers and the internet). The market information which will be collected and disseminated include; Fish prices, quantity of fish, number of fish buyers and fish trucks at various landing sites and markets; and basic weather information likely to affect marketing activities.
Expected benefits
The main beneficiaries of the project are; fishers, fish traders and fish processing firms; cooperative type organizations (Fishermen Cooperative Societies, Beach Management Units and Women Fish Traders Associations). Fisheries organizations will directly benefit as the project will meet the costs of generating and relaying market information and enhance their access to such information. The main achievement of the project will be the establishment of a market data and information collection and dissemination system serving 150 fish landing sites on Lake Victoria via mobile phones (as well as the internet, newspaper and radio broadcasts). A subsidiary output will be a database containing key market information. The expected impacts of the project are; Increased incomes to fishers and fish traders, reduced post-harvest losses, decreased costs of marketing fish and, increased awareness by fisher community and other stakeholders of fish market trends.
Project costs
The project will meet all the communication costs, procure the services of mobile phone service providers, purchase computers and other hardware for the data centre, mobile phones for BMUs participating in the project; office supplies and communication facilities. It will support setting up of the data centre, training data collectors and analysts; holding workshops, consultative meetings with key partners, media publicity and awareness creation events. It will support field work, data collection and dissemination; project monitoring, evaluation and related project activities.
Project financing
KMFRI has already sourced some funds from project partners and committed its own resources to operate the pilot phase of the project for the duration of one year from June 2009 to May 2010. The total project budget is 105,837.78, of which funds committed by ILO is US$ 83,950.99 while KMFRI’s contribution is US$ 21,886.79.
Project Coordinator: Dr. Richard O. Abila, Assistant Director, abilarichard@yahoo.com
Tel: +254-57-2021461; +254 733922643; +254 725 369061
Assistant Project Coordinator: Mr. Andrew Othina, Representative Gembe FCS an_othina@yahoo.com,+254-734847440 / +254-714066573