To prevent fishermen’s post-harvest losses, the Nigerian Energy Forum (NEF) with funding from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and SGF has identified two fishing communities in Lagos where it will provide cold room and dryer which will be powered by solar.
Explaining what the project is all about to our correspondent, the Business Coordinator for Nigeria Energy Forum, Mr. Adebayo Adegoke, said the project is aimed at helping coastal communities improve their fishing activities. Research, he said, has shown that there is high level of post-harvest waste whereby fishermen go into the wild to get fish but by the time they get back there is this high level of waste, so this project is aimed at helping them preserve their fish or catch to enable them maximise their profit because nobody will buy spoilt fish or seafood from them. The project is targeted at helping them maximise their catch so they don’t have so much losses.
He said the NEF team has been to various communities but identified two that needed solution most, that is, Langbasa and Sagbokoji. “The reason we deal with these two communities is because Sagbokoji is peculiar for the fact that it is an island community where there is no power supply and there is no form of electricity where one may hopefully feel they will have freezers and dryers that will help them preserve their products but they don’t have all of these. It is an island in Apapa axis, just away from Liverpool.
“We also chose Langbasa because it is an open community with fishing history behind it. But being a pilot project, we still intend to reach other communities even outside Lagos State but we will have where to start from, so we picked these two communities to start the project.”
“The solution we are providing there is cold room and dryer. It will be powered by solar. We will use solar panels to power the cold room and the dryer. We know they don’t have access to the national grid so it makes it easier to look for a solution that can be used off the national grid which is solely driven by solar.
“We have been on this project from April last year identifying the communities first. We have been able to scout round. This is not solely done by us, we had partnership from the National Institute of Fishery. They have more access to all of these communities so we went to them and were able to identify some of these coast communities that have this challenge of post-harvest losses.Part of the thing we have done is we had an onsite assessment of the communities, gone to their schools to see the situation of things because part of what we supposed to do on this programme is to encourage the young ones go into fishing. We have done some trainings onsite. We have been able to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ourselves and the communities because we cannot do it alone so we have gone into partnership with the communities.
“One of the things we have been able to do is make them realize this is a project they have to take responsibility for, they have to own it. It will be counter-productive to come up with solution and they don’t use the solution probably because of their personal beliefs or they aren’t just inclined to improvements. We have seen that happen several times where innovations are taken to communities and they abandon it because they feel it is too complex. But we have tried to make this as simple as possible and that is the reason we are training community members on how to install and maintain the solution because that is the only way the project can be sustaining.”
To make the solution cost-effective and encourage the fishing communities, Adegoke said: “We had a survey which we did one-on-one with them on if they will be willing to pay to use this solution because it is important to know the solution will be maintained. One of the ways to maintain and sustain it is for them to pay a little fee or amount to making the running of this project sustainable. Yes, we got funding from the UNDP, but as much as possible, we can’t go back to them for the maintenance. The communities must take responsibility for maintaining it which is why we had to go into MoU with them. We had an understanding where we told them that this is a project that is coming to you and you have to take responsibility. Armed with that understanding, what is left for us to do is to train them while these conditions are done so that they will be able to work on the solutions when they develop issues. Therefore, they aren’t paying for the equipment and installation because it is meant for them but they pay for the maintenance. To use it, they will have to pay a token to be able to maintain it.
“Also, on the one-on-one survey we had with them, we compared the cost of preserving their catch the traditional way and paying a token to use this technology to do so. We asked them how much they would be willing to pay to use the services. That formed some of the decisions we took to making it work. On the average what they are willing to pay is between N1,000 and N2,000 for usage. At that point, it gives us an idea of what the turnover will be at the end of the month. If there are issues, the solution will be maintained. We will also employ community people to man it because it is better they do. So, they are responsible for the sustenance of the project. Even in terms of finance, the community heads need to know exactly how it is done for them to be able to maximise whatever comes in, so the person in whose custody the collected token is kept is not accused of embezzlement. We also have the responsibility to check on them at intervals at least for a year or two before completely handing it over to them.”
On whether the programme is to help the fishermen to mass produce and get healthy fishes that can pass export test, Adegoke said: “Basically, for us it is about helping them to produce fishes and aquatic products that are hygienic. Apart from the fact that it will be good enough for export, we are also first consumers of these products. Therefore, we need to start teaching ourselves why some of these smoked fishes are failing us. Before now, we don’t use to have a whole lot of some of these illnesses but it is out of their ignorance of not knowing what the fumes from the woods they buy produce, they just buy woods. Even sometimes they buy treated woods and all of these treated wood come with chemicals. But they just buy wood thinking wood is wood and they use it to preserve their catch, so there is no way such aquatic products will get to the laboratory and not fail. So we are trying to encourage them to start looking at more conventional ways of getting things done properly.
For Mrs Abiodun Solanke, a lecturer at the Federal College of Fishery and Marine Technology, Victoria Island, Lagos, the importance of the programme to the fishermen and consumers of their fish is for health and safety.
She said: “Our problem in Nigeria is not production. We produce so much but what happens is that when there are no storage facilities, many of the fishes they produce are wasted. Therefore, the importance of this initiative to fishermen is that if they adopt this technology, it will help them to store their fish product, extend the shelf life of the fish product because the shelf life of fish product if you don’t do anything to it within hours like about 1-2 hours after harvest, deterioration sets in. So the whole idea is to provide them with storage facility so that the product can have extended shelf life.
“Another benefit of this initiative to consumers is that diseases like cancer, among others are becoming rampant in our society and the truth of the matter is that many of these diseases have so many things to do with our nutrition. For seafood, many of these processors use firewood to smoke and some of these firewood especially the soft wood has a particular carcinogenic substance known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). So if you consume fish or seafood product that have high concentration of this PAHs, it has a way of affecting the body negatively.
“So the idea is not that we are condemning what they are doing but we are trying to limit the exposure time that this fish product use in their facility so that they can complete the drying process using a climate smart technology dryer which is powered by solar energy.
“If they are able to do their fish in a hygienic manner, you discover that this fish can pass for export. Not export alone, as we speak the demand and supply for fish is in the negative, there is still a gap even in Nigeria. So it is not even export alone, even for them to sell their product in Nigeria, they need to do it hygienically so everyone of us can consume this product and are not exposed to any health or safety issue.”
Chief Adesanya Olironise of Lamgbasa, the Odofin of Lamgbasa and Divisional Chairman of Fishermen Cooperative for Lagos Island, Mainland and Etiosa, said: “The programme is for our progress and I’m very happy. Since the programme started last year, I have been expecting them to come. When they came, they told us they want to give us cold room and a dryer. They talked to our fishermen and fisherwomen. We held meetings several times with them, went to the sea together. We even went to our Kabiyesi’s palace together. Two weeks ago, Mr. Adebayo invited us to come here. We would have been more than this number but he said he wanted three men and three women as representatives. We appreciate because we have been expecting what we saw today. With the documentary we watched today, we are expecting them to bring the cold room and dryer. Presently, we have not been trained on how to install and maintain the equipment until the equipment arrives.”
