Fishing for food and profit
Under the hot sun, Peter Jok places fish on a simple drying rack made of wooden poles and mesh wire. Just hours before, the fish were plucked directly from the Nile, and without quick work they would spoil in the heat.
But using sun drying and smoking techniques taught by a fishing expert from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Jok will be able to preserve the fish for several months, and can even take his catch long distances to sell at markets in towns and villages.
With the mighty Nile flowing directly through the heart of the country, fishing seems like an obvious way to get nutritious food and to make money.
But the pastoralist tribes who herd their livestock here in Mingkaman, former Lakes State, are often more focused on cattle than on fish. Milk and meat are the primary sources of food.
“It is said that this is the only country where fish die of old age,” quips Ezana Kassa, a project manager with FAO who works in the area of the former Lakes State.
In South Sudan, nearly half the population is struggling to find enough to eat each day. Although there are no scientific surveys on fish population, there are indications that fish are a vastly underused natural resource, particularly among cattle keepers.
William Hakim Ushalla, a Senior Fisheries Officer for FAO, says part of the problem is that cattle keepers have the misconception that fishing is only for fisherfolk who do not own livestock.
Ushalla says it’s not only the Nile which provides fish, but also streams, tributaries and other water bodies around the country which are rich in nutritious varieties of fish. But the problem is that cattle keepers are not aware of the benefits, or even that it’s an option available to them.
“When we wanted to start the training they said, ‘this is not for us, this is for the fishermen – monyatooch’. But we told them ‘you come and see for yourself’. So some of them came and then they see that this is becoming very interesting for them.”
During the dry season, pastoralists often set up camps near rivers and streams in order to have pasture and water for their animals. At the time of the training, this camp called “Maraya Camp” had settled only a few hundred metres from the riverside, making fishing very accessible.
During his multi-day training courses, Ushalla starts by training cattle keepers how to identify different species of fish. He then emphasizes the importance of choosing quality fish which are in good health in order to have a better end product.
Ushalla also teaches the pastoralists about the nutritional value of adding fish to their diets, as well as the benefits of good hygiene.
“‘Before you process you have to wash your hands, if you have wounds don’t rub it,’ I tell them. You teach them about hygiene also because it will be a better product,” he explains.
Ushalla shows the cattle keepers how to cut and dry the fish for preservation and he also demonstrates how to build a kiln to smoke the fish using river mud and sticks — materials that are commonly available at no cost.
During the training, participant William Mawar quickly sees the benefit of preserving fish.
“In the dry season you have something to eat and if there are things that you are lacking then you can sell the fish to buy some other basic needs,” he says.
Being able to preserve and transport the fish gives the cattle keepers a competitive advantage when it comes to making sales.
“They are selling one fish for 20 SSP in those fishing sites and half an hour drive away the same fish is sold 200, 300 SSP,” observes Kassa.
For Anyang Wunakot, a 25-year-old mother of five children, learning these new skills means she will be able to sell fish to buy other necessities.
“After this training I hope to start using all these methods and hopefully I will make money out of the fish that I have preserved so that I can buy other products like soap,” she explains.
It’s part of an overall goal of encouraging pastoralists to become less dependent on cattle alone, and more involved in other ways of making money.
The Pastoralist Livelihood and Education Project, which is managed by Kassa and funded by the European Union, also teaches cattle keepers how to cultivate vegetables and start small businesses. As well, the project teaches basic reading and writing to cattle keepers who have had little or no formal education.
Right now, because the pastoralists are almost exclusively dependent on cattle, raiding between groups is a major cause of violence in many parts of the state.
“One of the reasons there is a lot of cattle raiding … is that the livelihood options are quite limited for the youth in camps and only revolve around cattle. So they need to be engaged in learning, in life skills, in various livelihood activities so that they will be able to contribute to the peace, explains Kassa.
“There are other options …which if supported, can make them more resilient to issues to do with cattle raiding, drought and disease outbreaks.”
He says that, in turn, can help bring peace to this conflict-weary nation.