Ø A 50-kg bag of diammonium phosphate fertilizer retails for over MK 500. Ø Seventy five percent of Malawian families cannot feed themselves, producing, on the
average, only 64 of their own food requirements. Their meager cash income can make up only a portion of the shortfall.
The pervasive hunger and lack of cash among rural populations constrain both production and marketing of agricultural commodities. For example, with no cash to
purchase fertilizers or other inputs, farmers tend to rely on the existing farm resource base, which, of course, diminishes over time as produce is eaten andror sold. In
addition, since most consumers are lacking in cash to purchase food, they must rely on traditional or barter systems to get them through the seasons when their own farms
Ž
. most consumers are also smallholding farmers have failed to produce enough for the
Ž .
entire year Brummett, 1995 . Aquaculture integrated into the smallhold farming system has been shown to improve
Ž both productivity and cash flows with little or no external input Brummett and Noble,
. 1995 , and is being promoted by the Malawi Fisheries Department as a means of
addressing rural poverty and resource degradation. Existing technology focuses on maximizing individual fish size based on the assumption that larger fish would be more
profitable to grow.
The profitability of aquaculture will be largely determined by market conditions and the technology available to fish farmers. The most useful technology will permit farmers
to customize their production system to meet market demand. Field workers have noted that little or no premium is paid by African consumers for fish above a minimum market
Ž .
size Gilberg, 1966; Mdaihli, 1992 . To determine what types of technology should be developed and promoted, the Malawi Fisheries Department requested the International
Ž .
Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management ICLARM to learn how urban and rural markets differ in terms of demand for fish and what type of fish should be grown
to determine the size that optimizes crop value.
2. Materials and methods
In Africa, there is normally only one major market per town or city. In small towns, Ž
. this market is typically open only 1 or 2 daysrweek Agnew and Chipeta, 1979 .
Markets in larger urban centers normally operate every day. A team of two research support staff from the Malawi National Aquaculture Center was enlisted to purchase fish
Ž .
from nine typical markets around the Southern Malawi Region Table 1 . Markets were selected so as to represent a range of populations and distances from fisheries and other
markets. Ž
. Each market was categorized as either urban 10,000 inhabitants or rural. The city
of Blantyre is the major commercial and population center in Southern Malawi with a population of over 1 million. To determine the effect of this relatively large urban center
on rural fish pricing, Blantyre was used as a reference point from which the road
Table 1 Southern Malawian markets sampled for fish availability and price.
Blantyre, the major urban center in Malawi, was used as a reference point. No significant differences in fish Ž
. price were related to distances from fishery or Blantyre P -0.05 .
Ž .
Ž .
Market Market type
Distance from fishery km Distance from Blantyre km
L. Chilwa L. Malombe
L. Malawi Blantyre
Urban 99
167 191
Zomba Urban
35 103
127 64
Liwonde Urban
138 50
73 117
Domasi Rural
25 88
112 79
Songani Rural
20 93
117 74
Sakata Rural
10 103
127 84
Mkuba Rural
113 137
104 Namasalima
Rural 4
109 133
90 Namwera turn-off
Rural 30
81 104
88
distance in kilometers of each market was obtained from the 1992 Malawi Road and Ž
. Tourist Map Ministry of Information and Tourism .
Ž Fish are sold according to size and family, rather than species e.g., ‘‘kambuzi’’ are
. mixed small cichlids, whereas ‘‘mbuta’’ are mixed medium-sized cichlids . For pur-
poses of comparison, fish species were grouped according to their family as cichlids, silurids, cyprinids and others.
Fish preservation was coded according to increasing labor and energy required in Ž
. their preparation 0 s fresh, 1 s sun dried and 2 s smoked . To compare these three
major forms of product in the market, fish weights were converted to dry matter equivalents. As it was impossible to retroactively determine the whole body weights of
fishes that had been dressed in various and inconsistent ways, and since the vast majority of fishes are sold whole, only whole fish were purchased for this study.
Each type of fish commodity available in each market was purchased. As different Ž
sizes of fish are sold in different forms larger fish by the piece, smaller fish by the .
Ž .
‘‘pile’’ or ‘‘plate’’ , the cost in Malawi Kwacha US1 s MK 15 in 1996 of 1 kg of dry fish weight was calculated and used in making comparisons. In Malawi, fish ‘‘size’’
Ž .
is subjectively assessed, both by retailers and purchasers Gilberg, 1966 . For purposes of study, average total length in centimeters of the individual fish in each purchase was
used as an indicator of fish ‘‘size.’’ Virtually all fish currently in the markets are derived from the three major capture
Ž .
fisheries Lakes Malawi, Chilwa and Malombe . Each fishery produces its own group of Ž
. fish species Gilberg, 1966 . To determine if distance from point of capture to point of
retailing was affecting prices, the distance of each market from the source of each type of fish was determined.
Ž Each market was visited at least twice. Altogether, 79 33 in rural markets and 46 in
. urban markets separate purchases were made over the period 18 September–6 Decem-
ber, 1996. According to the only available published study of fish prices in Malawi Ž
. GOPA Consultants, 1987 , this time period corresponded to that in which fish prices
tended to be most closely related to the annual mean price.
After making their purchases, the sampling team conducted simple interviews to help Ž
. explain price data. Questions asked of fish buyers and retailers were the following:
Ž .
Ø What size of fish do you normally buy sell ? Ž
. Ø What size of fish do you prefer to buy sell ?
Ž .
Ø What species of fish do you normally buy sell ? Ž
. Ø What species of fish do you prefer to buy sell ?
Ž .
Ž .
Ø Conditional Why buy sell fish you do not prefer?
Ž . Ž .
Multiple regression was used to relate fish price P to market type M , fish species Ž .
Ž . Ž .
group S , state of preservation F , total length L , distance of the market from the Ž
. Ž .
fishery D and distance of the market from Blantyre B according to the following relationship:
P s f M,S,F,L,D,B .
Ž .
Ž Dummy variables were assigned to nominal data state of preservation, fish species
. group and market type . To confirm results for nominal data, differences between
market type, fish species group, and state of preservation were also compared with ANOVA, followed by either Duncan’s New Multiple Range Test or Student’s t-test.
Ž .
Zar, 1974 . All statistical methods produced similar results.
3. Results
