Fishing Industry

Karonga Central Constituency lies mainly along the shores of Lake Malawi and is therefore an ideal place to develop and expand fish production in Malawi through improved technologies for catching fish and through fish farming. Through consultations with local populations comprehensive programmes and projects will be developed to expand fish production in the area and improve incomes of local people. Facilities will be developed for processing and storage of the fish catch, and research will be made into further expansion of markets in Malawi and abroad.

To deal with this effectively, two aspects of fishing management in Malawi need to be combined along the following lines:

Improved fishing methods, through use of modern techniques;

Increasing fish production in Malawi, through fish farming along the shores of Lake Malawi and its rivers.

Improving fishing methods would involve the use of fishing boats with modern methods of fish detection and netting. Improvement of the production of fish through fish farming, would involve construction and management of fish ponds along the shores of the Lake.

A number of technologies have been developed and disseminated on various aspects of pond management. As a result, there has been an increase in the adoption of the aquaculture technologies, numbers of fish farmers and total production. This has largely been the result of development projects that have supported research in aquaculture. There is currently no technology for large-scale commercial aquaculture in Malawi. This Project is therefore intended to introduce “Commercial Fish Farming” in Malawi through private sector-community based partnership.

The private sector and local communities can join hands in expanding the scope of fish farming in Malawi. The private sector could develop fish ponds, which could then be managed by local communities on “shared cost-benefit basis”. Management of fishponds would be done on the basis of utilization of the rural population and more specifically on a "profit sharing".

lthough women do not take a direct part in fishing in Malawi, their involvement in processing and marketing the catch is crucial. Women make up over 40 percent of post harvest fisheries workers, with the majority engaged in processing (drying, smoking and chilling). IA decline in the fish catch invariably means that women engaged in fish processing activities have seen a decline in income. Employment opportunities could be created by encouraging women to participate in profit sharing enterprises such as the fish pond project.