88 Safina M. Musa, Christopher Mulanda Aura and Rodrick Kundu
suggesting that they could easily integrate aquaculture into the farming
system of the farming families. However, since they are undertaken by
women, they are often viewed as requiring little skill. This is a major
gender issue in aquaculture and leads to women’s work being
undervalued and poorly rewarded. Contrary to women, majority of men
owned farm land, limiting women access to credit due lack of collateral.
Majority of women and men in Nyanza region dealt with fresh fish
products as compared to processed fish, indicative of little transformation
of aquaculture fish that does not travel far inland to rural villages. There
are disparities in many aspects of fish farming between men and women,
and thus training and credit should be made available to females along the
aquaculture value chain so that they invest in cooling facility and or value
addition to improve on profits.Keywords: aquaculture value chain (AVC), Nyanza region, gender analysis,
Artisanal fisheries
1. INTRODUCTION
Kenyan aquaculture sector has witnessed rapid expansion over the past
five years as a result of Fish Farming Enterprise Productivity Program
(FFEPP) under the Economic Stimulus Program (ESP). As a result of FFEPP,
farmed fish production increased from 4,220 MT in 2007 to 20,487 MT in
2012, representing a percentage contribution from 2.5% to 15% to the national
fish production. This production was from 68,734 ponds, 161 tanks measuring
23,085 m^2 and 124 reservoirs with an area of 744,000 m^2 throughout the
country (GoK, 2012).
Aquaculture expansion in Kenya has been accompanied by a gradual shift
from extensive to semi-intensive culture systems. This approach has in turn
created a national short-term demand of about 28 million certified tilapia and
catfish fingerlings and over 14,000 metric tonnes of formulated fish feeds. The
multiplier effect resulting from farmers digging their own ponds is expected to
increase the demand for fingerlings to over 100 million and the demand for
fish feeds to 100,000 MT in the medium term (Charo-Karisa and Gichuri,
2010). This has resulted in the number of hatchery operators increasing from
only 5 state – owned hatcheries to over 100 hatcheries in 2012 (GoK, 2012).
The investment of private sector in fish seed industry has sharply increased
over the past few years. However, the value chain of the sector has not yet
been mapped and the key players have not been clearly identified. Therefore,