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Omena shake-up set to triple fisher and drier incomes

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A new Omena trading app is looking to revolutionise the Kenya omena market by breaking the reliance on brokers for omena fishermen and drying women, a move that could triple their earnings.

Omena fishing is only done in Lake Victoria and the omena value chain employs more than two million people in Kenya. Omena or the Lake Victoria sardine is a popular nutritious delicacy for accounting for 35 per cent of the fish eaten by Kenyans. However, only one-third of omena is eaten by Kenyans with the rest being processed for animal feed. Farmers buy omena to add protein and calcium in poultry and pig feed for faster growth, and increased egg output. Omena fishery is valued at Sh25.8 million– one-third of the total value of fish from Lake Victoria– making it the most important fish industry to Kenya and Uganda’s regional economies. 

Currently, four to five omena fishermen leave for Lake Victoria in the evening after six and usually return to the shore from five in the morning. They will then sell their still-wet catch to small-scale women processors at the landing beaches who dry the fish and sell them to brokers in polypropylene sacks. 

These commission agents/ brokers are the link between the two sides of the omena trade– the fishermen and women driers on one side and the retailers, wholesalers, and consumers on the other. 

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While omena fishers earn Sh20 to Sh30 for a kilogram of their catch, it is eventually sold for three to 40 times the price depending on where it lands in Kenya.

According to the Kenya Agricultural Market Information System (KAMIS) as of Sunday of this month, a kilogram of omena costs Sh100 at retail in Gikomba market in Nairobi. In Rongo market, Migori County, it costs Sh400 wholesale. On the eighth of this month in Kamukuywa market, Bungoma, one kilogram of sardines cost Sh1,125 at wholesale. These high prices were driven by an undersupply of omena to the two towns.

Through funding from the European Union’s Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) researchers from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology

(JKUAT) have developed the first omena trading app giving fisher groups direct access to these lucrative markets.

“We are starting with two Beach Management Units (BMUs)– which are made up of fishers, women fish processors, and boat owners– in the Marenga and Dunga omena beaches in Busia and Kisumu, “ said the program’s lead Nelson Ojijo– a JKUAT associate professor and food technologist.

These groups are encouraged to sell their omena together which gives them access to wholesale and retail markets directly and also ensures they benefit from economies of scale which help them bargain for better prices.

However, individual traders will also be allowed to sell their omena on the platform.

The mobile application, tentatively named The Omena Trading App, set to be released in late November, will allow these BMUs, individual fishers, and women processors to connect directly to buyers.

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“We are in the last stages of training the fishers on how to use the app and are onboarding BMUs, individual fishers, and women beach driers onto the application,” 

The app which was developed by current and former JKUAT students who also made M-shamba– a digital learning platform for farmers– will be the one-stop shop for anyone looking for omena. “For the omena sellers, they will have information on the quantities of omena they have, the price, and what number to reach them on. Buyers will similarly have their contact details, what quantities they require, and their location. This will enable seamless direct interaction between the fishers and buyers who were out of their reach,” Ojijo said.


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