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pattern helps to make Sardinella available on the market in Ghana almost all year round to satisfy a growing local demand.
Labour is needed at all levels of the sardinella chain. The labour needs are seasonal and fluctuates with catch availability. Because of the perishable quality of fish, labour is needed
for immediate processing when fish is landed or removed from cold storage. The majority of the labour utilised by fishmongers are kith and kin. They learn the trade through
apprenticeship at an early age, about 10 years old. Little or no formal training is needed to process fish. This means labour often drops out of basic school and only a few complete basic
school. Often children or close relatives of processors who manage to get to Secondary school or a few to the University help the business as clerks. During the bumper season, some
fishmongers in the urban centres go to their home villages to recruit young school dropouts with no employment to come and work. They are settled with between 400 to 500 Ghana
cedis and four pieces of 6-yards of cloth at the end of a fishing season that last up to 6 months. During the period they are sheltered, fed and clothed. Some manage to stay for many
years and eventually learn the trade while others break off at some point when they think they have gathered enough money to have their independence. Some of the fish processing helpers
eventually help with fish trading and retailing to support their livelihoods. One processor informed us about an arrangement in some years back where female prisoners are brought in
daily to help in fish processing during bumper harvest period. The women prisoners who exhibited good behaviour come in regularly and over some period are able to pick up fish
processing skills that eventually become useful to them. This arrangement has long since been discontinued.
3.4 Post Harvest Losses
Most of the retailers of the dry smoked sardinella and anchovy did not have issues with post- harvest losses, partly because the fish was dry and also partly because most of the traders and
retailers have very good storage rooms and methods. They explained they could store their products for several months with no issue of spoilage.
On the other hand, processors and retailers of freshly smoked sardinella complained about some losses due to the wet nature of the fish. A by-product of the fish smoking process is
broken pieces of fish often dominated by fish heads; pieces of whole but burnt fish; and fish scales and skin Plate 7. This by-product is available at the processing site in relatively larger
quantities but found in smaller quantities at the fish markets. The by-product is collected and further dried and normally sold to poultry farmers; and in recent years to small scale fish
farmers. Therefore, there are essentially little or no post-harvest losses of landed sardinella and other small pelagics.
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Plate 7 Procesed fish by-product being further dried in the sun
Retailers described different methods they used to store their products but most of their methods where not effective enough to keep the fish from deteriorating. Some of the methods
they described include sprinkling of salt solution on the fish and covering it up with either paper or polythene, storage in the fridge and storing in a cool dry room.
Cold store ownersmanagers cited erratic electricity supply as the main cause of losses since most cold stores did not have standby power plant they could depend on when there is power
outages. Some of them also stated the high cost of power was killing their businesses since that consumed most of the revenue they make. High cost of transportation and other services
were also cited by most cold store owners and managers as the main issues they faced. They stated that these problems went a long way to affect the pricing of their products. High prices
of these products result in low patronage since most consumers within the north belt especially are poor. This they stated was the main cause of their businesses running down.
Overall, there is very little 5 post harvest losses in the Sardinella and other small pelagics value chain because all landed catch is used directly by humans and indirectly
through the poultry and aquaculture sectors. However, there are unknown but expectedly significant quantities of losses of landed catch from Ghana to neighbouring through
processed fish taken across the borders to Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso at the Elubo, Half Assini, Paga, Dormaa, and Aflao borders. This is due to inadequate capacity and
effective co-ordination of activities of regulatory institutions. These leakages in fish export have negative financial implications to the country as taxes and accrued other levies cannot
be collected by the revenue agencies.
3.5 Mapping the value chain circuit and mass balance of imports and
