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Small-scale fisher communities are particularly vulnerable
to food insecurity. According to a 2014 publication on
nutrition and food security by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), the vast majority of small-scale fisher
communities are located within developing countries and
many of these are severely affected by poverty and inad-
equate food security.
Promoting family food production such as farming and
fishing is one sure way of fighting and eradicating hunger and
malnutrition at the family/household level. Family fishing is
specifically instrumental in improving food security in fishing
communities as it ensures that households are food secure and
can have a decent living.
Access to fish in fishing communities, and more specifically
for women, is determined by who is fishing and which market
is being targeted. This is further made difficult and deter-
mined by other factors such as access to financial resources
to enable the family to engage in fishing.
In some fishing communities, funding for the acquisition of
boats, nets and fishing materials is obtained through access to
credit. The result of this is usually that households fish to service
the loan, benefiting the creditor most, whose main motive for
fishing is export. This drains small-scale fisher communities of
access to fish for food and fish to trade, especially for women.
Women are more vulnerable in such circumstances as their
access to fish, which is mainly for processing, to trade is limited
and in most cases that right is taken away.
KWDT supports women to access credit to invest in fishing
activity, be it the acquisition of fishing boats or credit to trade
in fish. With the ownership of boats in their hands, the women
decide on the proportion of fish to be used for processing and
for direct home consumption. Enabling women to access fish for
trade has provided meagre profits that have continued to sustain
rural fisher households, many of them headed by women.
The current wave of large-scale land and water acquisi-
tion that has been sparked off by the food crisis in 2008 has
greatly contributed to the rapid vanishing of family farming
generally and family fishing specifically. Commercial fishing
owned by big corporations, the development of beaches, real
estate development and other recreational activities have
proved to provide stiff competition for family fishing. This
is exacerbated by inadequate funding for women engaged in
small-scale fishing, as well as ineffective governance struc-
tures and poor policies.
Unsustainable fishing practices worsen the situation. In
October 2012 Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on
the right to food, noted: “Without rapid action to claw back
waters from unsustainable practices, fisheries will no longer
be able to play a critical role in securing the right to food
of millions. With agricultural systems under increasing
pressure, many people are now looking to rivers, lakes and
oceans to provide an increasing share of our dietary protein.”
This is the exact situation for the Lake Victoria basin, which
is continuously facing environmental, social and economic
challenges posing a great threat to resources and livelihoods
in the basin. These challenges have resulted in decreased
incomes, unemployment, and food and nutritional insecu-
rity in the fishing communities.
EMEDO’s capacity empowerment approach enables fishing
communities to analyse their situations, identify develop-
ment challenges and possible causes, and seek solutions. This
creates ownership and entrusts the community with respon-
sibility to take charge of its own development.
Family fishing, for instance, does not only have to be
managed and operated by the family members, but should also
primarily benefit them directly, both in the form of income
and fish for direct consumption. Under the umbrella of family
fisheries, the family should be the primary target of fishing
50,000
Trends of fishers for Lake Victoria Fisheries Frame Survey 2012
Trends of fishing crafts from 2000 - 2012 surveys
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
100,000
110,000
14,000
2000
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
2002 2004 2006
Year
Number of fishing crafts
Number of fishers
Year
2008 2010 2012
16,000
18,000
20,000
22,000
24,000
26,000
28,000
30,000
Lake Victoria Fisheries Frame Survey 2012
The Fisheries Frame Survey, conducted in Lake Victoria, Tanzania in 2012, reports a notable increase in overall fishing effort
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