3.2 Lake Victoria fisheries
Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest fresh water Lake, is shared by Tanzania (49%), Uganda (45%) and
Kenya (6%). Fishery resources of Lake Victoria are the major source of fresh water fish in the area.
The volumes of Tilapia caught from the lake affect prices of wild and cultured fish in the entire region.
Therefore, the status and trends of Lake Victoria fisheries are important since this will influence the
potential of aquaculture development in the entire region of countries surrounding the lake.
The Tilapia species have become the most popular species in Lake Victoria. Nile tilapia Oreochromis
niloticus was introduced into Lake Victoria in 1950’s together with other non-indigenous tilapiines
including Oreochromis leucostictus Trewavas, Tilapia zillii Gervais and Tilapia rendalii Boulenger from
Lake Albert (Welcomme, 1967). Nile Tilapia started to appear in commercial catches in 1960
constituting less than 1% of the landings (Welcomme, 1967). By 1965, it featured prominently in the
commercial catches and currently it is the most commercially important tilapiine, whereas the native
species of O. variabilis and O. esculentus have largely disappeared (Witte and van Densen, 1995;
Othina and Tweddle, 1999). Currently, Nile Tilapia constitutes the third most commercially important
fishery in Lake Victoria, after the introduced Lates niloticus (Nile Perch) and endemic cyprinid,
Rastrineobola argentea Pellegrin (Dagaa).
Data on important life history indicators and stock dynamics for Nile Tilapia are sparse and do not
form long time series to facilitate definitive conclusions about the resource. However, studies from the
catch assessment surveys provide indications on the trends on the fishery.
Products were most of the time sold as frozen fillets (56%), followed by fresh fillets (39%) and frozen
headless & gutted Nile perch (5%).
In regions near the border of Kenya a substantial percentage of the caught Nile perch are smuggled
into Kenya. Fishermen can get better prices for their fish in this country. The Nile perch by-products
mainly go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The maws, heads, frames and offcuts are dried,
packed and transported in trucks from mainly Mwanza.
Dagaa exports were mainly to Kenya (>90%), but also other regional countries. The Dagaa are
transported by truck in 35 kg bags of around 60.000-85.000 TSH per bag (in 2014). Most of these fish
are used for fish meal. Over the exported fish products a royalty (around 100-200 TSH per kg) need
to be paid and the products need to be accompanied with the right export certificates. Beside this a
transport permit is needed of around 5,000 TSH per ton.
Detailed import data are given in annex 2. In 2012, Tanzania imported almost 4,900 tonnes of fish
and fishery products worth around USD3.5m. The most important import product in 2012 was frozen
mackerel (mainly pacific and Indian mackerel, but also horse, (yellow) scad, Arabian and chub
mackerel), accounting for around 86% of total import. Imports originated mostly from Asian countries,
notably Yemen, India and China. Frozen mackerel is an interesting import product because of the
affordable price. Frozen mackerel are sold on the Tanzanian market for around TSH1,000 per piece
(200 grams).
Important to note is that while the import volumes in 2012 are 8 times smaller than the export
volumes, the import value (USD3,5m) is almost 47 times smaller than the value of the export value
(USD163,3m). This confirms the observation that Tanzanian consumers mostly consume unprocessed
fish products which have much lower value than high value processed products that are mainly
destined for export.
3.1.4 Fish availability
Almost the entire supply of fish available for consumption in Tanzania is produced locally. The total
production of fishery products was around 375,000 tonnes in 2013 (Figure 3). Figure 5 shows that in
2013 39,000 tonnes of seafood products were exported and an additional 4,900 tonnes of seafood
products were imported. Assuming that the farmed production in 2013 was the same as in 2012
(3,600 tonnes), in 2013 around 343,000 tonnes of seafood were consumed domestically.
3.1.5 Competition and development scenarios
In Tanzania there is almost no competition in the fish market between domestic and imported fish
products. As marine and inland capture fisheries remain under pressure it is not expected that the
fishery production will grow. An increase in the supply of fish products has to come from imports or
aquaculture. With a per capita fish consumption of 7 kg per year and a population growth of 2.8%, the
additional production volume required in order to maintain the present level of fish consumption can
be estimated for different years for different consumption averages. Table 3 shows the expected
scenarios for increasing consumption per capita per year. This scenario’s give an idea about the
growth potential for aquaculture in Tanzania.
