USAID_Feed the future Sierra Leone_Annual Progress Report_October2018

Abstract

This is an annual progress report related to the activities carried out in 2017/2018. The Feed the Future Sierra Leone Scaling up Aquaculture Production (SAP) project aims to increase fish production and consumption and incomes of small-scale farmers through strategic value chain interventions, enhanced market access, private sector investment and improved nutrition-related behaviors by developing and testing pro-poor business models. The project comprises the following six components: (1) Test pro-poor business models to promote aquaculture as a profitable and sustainable agribusiness to increase fish production and employment; (2) Improve input supply including private sector participation; (3) Develop strategies for markets and market linkages for fish farmers and facilitate market access; (4) Contribute towards behavior change communication to increase fish consumption and improve processing and hygiene along the value chain; (5) Develop capacities among stakeholders of the project; and (6) Operationalize M&E systems and knowledge sharing and learning platforms. In details, during the this implementation period, the project demonstrated that fresh tilapia has a market demand at the local daily and weekly markets and urban markets. There is potential market niche in the local markets as indicated by farmers’ abilities to sell all fish on the same day that their fish was harvested and competitive prices received by selling farmed tilapia. The market strategies tested for framers to become traders at local weekly and daily markets, and urban markets, selling fish to fish sellers at weekly and urban markets and selling fish to urban restaurants were proven successful. However, access to cold storage facilities for farmers is critical for these strategies to be sustainable. There is an indicative promising taste preference for tilapia menus over other fish menus in restaurants bought farmed tilapia. All above results indicate that there is a potential to expand small-scale farmed tilapia for internal trade in Sierra Leone. Though not significantly different, the input supply business model under contract farming performed better than the micro-credit model due to farmers’ poor ability to manage the loan effectively indicating a strong need to strengthen farmers’ ability to manage the loan effectively and adopt methods to prevent or minimize utilization of loan money other than for fish farming and/or disburse microcredit in kind.