7.1 Fresh bonga
7.2 Ketiakh
7.3 Smoked and dried bonga
In West Africa, the markets display fresh, salted and dried, and smoked (whole and powdery) bonga. These products vary from country to country and region to region. The processors either sell their products wholesale or hire representatives and/or family members to retail in the main rural markets. The prices vary seasonally and according to the distance from the processing or harvesting centre to the markets.
Among consumers, the choice of bonga product depends on availability, price, taste preference, and purchasing power. The urban dwellers attract a lot of fresh bonga that is used in cooking stews and fried fish specialities. Some boil the fresh bonga and use it as a side dish for some cereal-based meals. The consumers who live farther away buy the roasted and dried, salted and dried, or smoked and dried bonga. The whole pieces are used in various West African recipes and the powdery form is added to soups and stews according to local food habits and the quantity available to a household. The willingness to pay for good quality fresh bonga has now increased the sale of iced bonga in Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea. An increase in ice plants and coldrooms at fishing sites will further increase consumption of fresh bonga in the sub-region. Iced bonga costs about FCFA 65/kg (US$ 0.32/kg) at the Dakar wholesale market. As a comparison, the more popular round sardinella (S. aurita), also iced, costs about 23 percent more at FCFA 80/kg (US$ 0.39/kg).
The ketiakh produced in Mbour and Joal (Senegal) is sent to the internal markets in Thies, Louga, Sine Saloum, Diourbel, and Cap Vert region, and the external markets in Mali and Guinea. The average price is FCFA 75/kg.
Whole smoked bonga pieces are distributed to the local Senegalese market and distant markets in Guinea and Mali. Apart from the local markets (mainly the weekly markets at Farafenni and Basse), there is a lucrative Guinean market that absorbs smoked bonga products from The Gambia. Guinean and Gambian processors, through traders or their own representatives, transport the product to Guinean markets such as Nzérékoré. The consignments exported range from 5 to 10 t per trip at a rate of one trip per week. Smaller markets along the route are Koundara, Labe, and Kankan.
Guinea-Bissau produces whole smoked bonga in its southern region, around Cacine. A very small quantity is sold in local markets like Qebo, Bafata, Kabou, and other eastern markets. Most of the produce is collected for transport to the Kamsar (Guinea) market. Vehicles and a 25 t capacity cargo canoe collect the smoked bonga from the Cacine and Cantede area for the Guinean markets every week. In Canamine some middlemen live among the processors, and they collect and transport consignments to Guinea every week. Apparently the smoked bonga industry in southern Guinea-Bissau is sustained by the Guinean market.
Guinea is the largest smoked bonga market in West Africa. Apart from the consignments from Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau, a lot of smoked bonga is produced in Guinea itself. In one day over 21 t of smoked bonga was transported from Kamsar: 2,890 kg powdery and 3,100 kg whole pieces to Nzérékoré (1,245 km away); 8,480 kg powdery to Siguiri (1,221 km); and 5,200 kg whole and 1,440 kg powdery to Conakry (over 400 km away). Kankan (1,096 km away) is also a major market served by Kamsar. From February to July 1993, 117 t of whole smoked bonga and 373 t of the powdery form were transported from Kamsar to the major markets mentioned above. This indicates very significant trade within a single distribution centre in Guinea. A national survey will produce an interesting record of the smoked bonga trade and distribution.
Figure 24 Woman processor peeling and gutting smoked bonga (Guinea-Bissau)
Figure 25 Traders peeling smoked bonga at the smoked fish trading depot at Kamsar (Guinea)
The FAO project management at Kamsar, after a brief study on the product trade, is working out ways of assisting the registered transporters to buy a truck through a bank loan that will have a collateral. The study, meanwhile, has proved that the loan can be easily paid because smoked fish cargo is always available for transportation out of Kamsar. There is so much activity and potential at Kamsar that a more elaborate study would be quite useful to fisheries institutions in the sub-region.
The bonga smoked in Conakry is sold in the city markets, as well as in Coyah, Kindia, Masanta, and Nzérékoré. Some of the processors receive orders from the United States, France, and Côte d'Ivoire. Conakry, Sangbou, and Bereyire are the principal markets for smoked bonga from Kaback (incidentally, another FAO fisheries project site in Guinea).
The Shenge region of Sierra Leone has about 1,400 processors, 20 percent of whom live in Katta. The others operate in Plantain Island, Tissana Point and Wharf, Shenge, and in other smaller centres. The product is transported to the up-country markets of Bo, Kenema, and Koindu (until the rebel war inactivated this major Liberian market transit base). These markets are becoming more accessible through the upgraded Shenge-Moyamba road. The poor road situation used to give some roguish traders an excuse for not paying for fish taken from the smokers by claiming that the consignment, fresh-dried, spoiled on the way or that they missed a vital weekly market somewhere. The improved road network has now increased public transport in the area and some smokers now even have time to market their own produce in the major markets where demand is on the increase.
The Dantokpa and Saint-Michel markets in Cotonou (Benin) are important retail outlets for smoked bonga. Some of the smoked bonga from Benin is transported to markets in Togo and Nigeria.
The "racket" attached smoked bonga is a common product in eastern Nigeria. The processors in the Niger delta areas of Iko, Iwofe, Okoroete, and Uta Ewa transport their products in dug-out canoes to Ikot Abasi, where they are retailed or sold wholesale to traders from big cities like Aba and Port Harcourt. Similar marketing arrangements prevail in other bonga smoking areas of Nigeria - big city consumers depending on scattered small processing centres.
The demand for whole smoked bonga is very high in Cameroon. The bonga caught at Wovia, Mbonjo I and II is processed at the respective sites, but that caught at Idenau is transported 45 km to Limbe to be sold fresh or smoked (80 percent of landings). The smoked bonga from this region (Southwest) of Cameroon is transported by traders and representatives of processors to the principal markets of Douala, Yaounde, Bamenda, and Koumba. Most of the bonga caught in Cameroon is, therefore, utilized by consumers in its smoked form.
Figure 26 A vigilant smoked bonga wholesale trader at the deport in Kamsar (Guinea)
Figure 27 Loading ground smoked bonga (powdery) for distant markets
