Yeji-The sun beats heavily on the marketplace as Fathia Afagbedzi beckons a potential customer. "My friend," she calls, "come here." "How much?" replies a trader from Kumasi, eyeing her baskets brimming with smoked catfish.
The two women banter back and forth, from offer to counteroffer, before settling on a price. Afagbedzi will repeat the ritual a hundred times before sundown, and thousands more before the fishing season draws to a close. One of several hundred local merchants whose prosperity confers the title of market queen, she acts as a sort of middleman, buying from nearby fisherfolk and selling to traders from afar.
Each year Afagbedzi and others like her sell as many as 10,000 metric tons of freshwater fish in Yeji, a town on the shores of Lake Volta that harbors Ghana's largest inland fish market. Diesel buses and lorries come from as far away as Accra, 500 kilometers to the south. Fish is the principal source of dietary protein for most people in West Africa, and Ghanaians, who consume an average of 22.5 kilograms of fish per year, are no exception. Mounting pressure on Lake Volta's fish stocks, however, is jeopardizing the country's ability to produce enough protein-rich foods to sustain its 16 million people. Drought and other factors have noticeably reduced the lake's volume and, consequently, its fish stocks. And the pressure on it is higher than ever; thousands of families have left behind the overfished waters off Ghana's southern coast to try their luck on the Volta. Between 1970 and 1991, according to surveys by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the number of fishermen near Yeji rose tenfold-from 1,738 to 18,312. The added strain on timber and other natural resources further clouds the region's future.
Nana Yejihene, chief of the Yeji Traditional Area, sums up the problem: "If we have no renewable source of firewood, deforestation is inevitable. Without firewood, we will have trouble curing the fish. And without fish to sell, our economy will fall into ruin."
Since 1988, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the FAO have supported an Integrated Development of Artisanal Fisheries program, called IDAF for short, to shore up the future of the 91,000 people who live in Yeji and 342 outlying villages. As a result, fishermen are planting trees and food crops on the lake's fertile banks, giving them an additional source of food and income. Their wives, who preserve fish by smoking it, are turning to redesigned ovens that conserve fuel and reduce the time spent gathering firewood. Merchants like Afagbedzi are taking classes to improve their literacy and accounting skills. And by adopting improved techniques for fish handling, processing, storage and marketing, residents of Yeji and nearby communities are not only revitalizing their economy, but also safeguarding their livelihoods for the long term.
The weekly cycle that culminates at Yeji's marketplace each Monday begins six days earlier, when fishermen set out in the early morning light to work their nets and traps. So it has been since the completion, in 1964, of the Akosombo Dam, which serves as the foundation for a national hydroelectric power project. The Volta River flooded a wooded valley the size of Luxembourg and formed the world's largest artificial lake. Today defoliated trees spread below the water's surface like outstretched hands. Gloved in algae, their finger-like limbs offer fertile feeding grounds for fish. Yet even in calm weather, fishing vessels toss easily against their unforgiving trunks and branches. The fishermen who ply Lake Volta's waters quickly grow accustomed to such hazards. What they find harder to accept is the high cost of boats, engine parts and nets. The cost of the gear, together with high interest rates on loans, make it difficult for them to turn a profit. Heightened competition has only added to their frustration.
To boost their revenues, many fishermen have taken to using illegal nets and traps-often in plain view of officials from the Department of Fisheries. But while these practices are yielding larger catches, they also exploit pregnant and immature fish and are causing the fish population to dwindle. Department officials contend that bureaucratic intricacies and lack of funds make enforcement of fishing regulations unworkable.
Other fishermen are finding an alternative-and less destructive-course by pressuring suppliers of fishing gear to lower their prices. With support from IDAF, a number of boat builders, mechanics and net sellers have formed professional associations and cooperatives to boost efficiency and cut costs. Fish processors, salt sellers, ferrymen and fish merchants have banded together to do the same. Philimon Dzekle, chairman of the Boatbuilders Association, says he and 25 of his peers have lowered their expenses by ordering galvanized nails, nuts and bolts in bulk. Electric saws and drills, together with a generator, which are shared among them, have reduced labor costs as well.
When fishermen return from the lake to their villages, often late at night, they turn their catch over to their wives. A blistering climate and lack of refrigeration make the women's work indispensable. Unless properly salted or smoked, the fish spoils before reaching the weekly market. "Here," says one of the women, "is the new oven." She points to a rectangular concrete fireplace on the chimney of which she has stacked four trays of catfish. Three years ago, she and 60 other women in the village of Jaklai began to forego their cylindrical mud cookers for Chorkor ovens at a communal fish processing center built with UNDP support. So popular is the new model that women built their own Chorkor ovens when the line at the communal ovens got too long. Named for the Ghanaian village where it was first introduced, the Chorkor not only smokes fish more evenly than traditional ovens, the women say, but is also safer and more durable. It handles larger quantities of fish while burning considerably less wood.
The Chorkor's appeal is not lost on these women, who typically walk as many as six kilometers through the savanna grassland to gather firewood. But although the new model saves legwork, it does nothing to replenish the region's timber supply. "If people continue to cut firewood from natural growth, the region will become a desert," says FAO's Bridget Moulah Parente, who recently visited Yeji and neighboring communities. "At the rate women are currently cutting trees, there will be none left in five to 10 years."
To reverse this trend, IDAF broadened its scope to include agroforestry. From a nursery in Yeji, the program distributes seedlings to farmers and fish processors in nearby villages. It has also set up a number of communal wood lots to demonstrate the merits of tree planting. Residents of Yeji were among the first to take notice, and through their Town Development Committee began raising seedlings on their own. In time, they will be able to harvest the trees for firewood, lumber and animal feed. Already cashews and mangos are providing additional sources of protein and vitamin C, and the neem tree serves a host of medicinal purposes.
Traditional fisheries management, says Charles Asafo, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture, overlooks many of the secondary activities and social needs of fishing communities. By practicing animal husbandry, restoring the forest cover, checking erosion and thereby preventing silting of the lake, he says, Yeji and its satellite communities are safeguarding their means of subsistence for the future.
Fishermen, for their part, are now supplementing their incomes by farming when the fishing season winds down. The fertile lowlands exposed where the lake has receded yield a rich harvest of maize, cassava, cow peas and tomatoes. Soybeans also thrive, providing an additional source of protein. Until recently, few fishermen had shown an interest in farming. But after seeing a demonstration plot set up by IDAF, they started signing up for lectures on farming and purchasing seeds with help from a revolving loan fund.
Fishing, nevertheless, remains the dominant industry. To ensure its survival, UNDP has provided US $300,000 for a new marketplace known locally as the community fisheries center. Governed by the chief of Yeji and other local officials, the center is designed to improve fish marketing as well as social conditions in the community. If all goes as planned, the center will not only be financially self-sustaining, but will generate profits through landing fees assessed on boats, rental of market stalls, taxes on fish sales and parking fees imposed on buses and lorries. Safer access ramps will make it easier to unload boats and reduce exposure to water-borne diseases. Other planned facilities include a boatyard, weighing sheds for carts of fish, net-sellers' shops and an assembly hall.
"Many of these facilities already exist in rudimentary form," says Yeji's chief, Nana Yejihene. "The center will strengthen them in a way that cuts down on the number of fish that spoil or go unsold." The center will also help to bring badly-needed social services to communities near Yeji. The Ministry of Health, for example, has plans to operate a clinic at the center and to extend immunization programs and other health services to nearby villages. The Ministry of Education will manage a day-care center at the new marketplace and expand non-formal education in the area. A $1.2 million contribution from the Japanese government will help to support the development of infrastructure and social services as part of the new fisheries complex. If successful, the Ghanaian government intends to develop six similar fisheries centers elsewhere on the lake.
As it has for three decades, Yeji's market teems with vitality. It is that same energy that is now being redirected to ensure sustainable livelihoods in the years to come. "Give way," shouts a stevedore, piloting his cart and cargo-rattan baskets of fish stacked two meters high-through the crowd. Farmers attend their tables, trading okra for avocados, plantains for groundnuts, cow peas for baby limes and shallots. Buskers by the roadside peddle wide-brimmed hats and brooms made of palm. And market queens beneath thatched roofs call out to passersby. As the sun dips a little lower in the sky, Afagbedzi can be heard among them, completing another sale.
By: Christopher Reardon, from: Choices (The Human Development Magazine), April 1995. From the United Nations Development Program.
