Hellen Adoa, the State Minister in Charge Fisheries
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries has linked the poor quality of fish to the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020 and flooding.
Hellen Adoa, the State Minister in Charge Fisheries made this revelation in a media address at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala on Friday.
“Due to the calamities witnessed in 2020 (the Covid-19 pandemic and flooding), the quality of fish going to the fish factories declined to 30,465.6 tons in the year 2020,” she said.
By June 2021, Adoa noted that the factories were only able to access 8,000 tons. She says that the drastic decline is threatening the closure of the factories since they are now operating at less than 10% installed capacity.
This, she says, comes at a time when there is a lot of demand for Nile Perch (internationally) and tilapia (locally).
“There is increased demand for fish, especially Nile Perch and its products internationally. Domestically, the demand for tilapia is also increasing and silver fish is needed to support the strategic direction of increase in the production of animal feeds,” she said adding that, “Despite the efforts by the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces to clear the lake of illegal fishing, which efforts have led to increased fish stocks in the lake, the volume of the available fish is still far less than the domestic and international demand requires.”
Adoa, however, recalls that between November 2015 and February 2017, there was an increase in fishing illegalities leading to a decline in fish catches.
As a result, the supply of fish to the factories declined from 29,544 tons in 2015 to 19,447 tons in 2016.
However, an increase was noted in 2017 following the deployment of the Fisheries Protection Unit. This was an increase to 23,141.5 tons. This was followed by an increase in stocks to 41,324 in 2018 and 57,409.6 tons in 2019.
Adoa is, however, optimistic that since the coming on board of the Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU) and the continued self-monitoring initiative by the industry under the Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters’ Association (UFPEA), there has been noticeable recovery of Nile Perch stocks in Lake Victoria.
