How to ensure quality sun-dried mukene

There are a number of fishermen and those who engage in catching silver fish as a commercial activity to earn a living.

However, most of these people dealing in the fish value chain do not follow the required practice to keep its quality good for consumption.

As such experts from Ministry of Agriculture with support from German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) prepared a guiding document to be used by extension service workers to sensitise fishermen and those involved in the fish value chain in adopting best practices in order to process quality silver fish for market uptake.

Habitat

The silver fish is known as the Lake Victoria sardine or mukene. It is a species of pelagic freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the carp family.

The silver fish normally occurs between 0-20 m in depth, although both eggs and fry can be encountered as deep as 68m about 223ft.

The adult fish stay close to the bottom in day time and rise up towards the surface at night. The juvenile fish usually move away from the shore where they spend their larval stage in shallow water.

In Lake Kyoga, mukene is found in open water apparently avoiding the water lily swamps and it is normally caught in turbulent areas of the Victoria Nile.

Its diet consists mainly of insects caught on the water surface. It is predated on by birds and the catfish.

It is thought that spawning occurs inshore and a mature female may have an estimated fertility of 1,000 eggs. It breeds throughout the year with two peaks, the first in August and the second in December to January.

It is fast growing and reaches sexual maturity at ages which vary from 16 to 25 months.

In the mid-morning the fish have a tendency to move towards the shoreline, especially where there are sandy beaches to search for food.

The fish is caught during moonless nights and in the morning it is sold to women who spread it out for drying in the sun.

Unfortunately, the best catches are made during the rainy season when drying is difficult resulting in lower quality of the dried product. The lowest quality is however still usable as chicken feed. Drying is often done on the sand, on rocks or on old nets spread on the grass.

Best practices

Recommended practices start with fishing itself. The experts warn against bad practices such as paraffin spilling on the nets or the floor of the boat during fishing which can cause contamination. Others are piling up large quantities of fresh mukene in small boats because it can lead to boat capsizing, use of polythene bags to cover fresh mukene which can lead to rotting of the fish, poor hygiene and use of inadequate fishing nets, among others.

It is recommended that contamination of any form is avoided. The experts say that good practices such as reducing fishing time between laying of nets and retrieval of the catch, using large fishing boats, avoiding contamination of fish with human waste, ensuring the boats and fishermen are clean before going to fish, using perforated polythene bags in the boat, among others, are recommended.

Transport

The recommended good practices are avoiding to throw fish while loading on the boat and avoiding stepping or sitting on fish.

Avoid keeping fish in the net while transporting and boats should have designated area for keeping fuel, boats should be painted with food grade paints and transport the fish immediately to avoid wastage.

Transfer from fishing boats

There are both bad practices adopted by fishermen when transferring from the nets to boats which must be avoided and they include use of dirty equipment and containers where fish are poured into, poor hygiene of workers wearing dirty cloths, using dirty water to clean fish, improper methods of transferring fish which in the end will mash them.

Fishermen are advised to use clean equipment including clean containers and avoid drugging the wet fish on the beaches indoor to ensure there is no contamination with sand and use protective gear to remove mukene from the boats.

Drying of mukene

Fishermen are encouraged to adopt good practices which include drying on racks which improve air condition for faster drying and the racks must be placed under the sun away from contaminating materials.

Ensure plastic materials are placed under the racks and any waste material must be removed when drying process is ongoing.

Keep away the fish away from rodents and insects and ensure proper hygiene and the fish must be dried until the water content is reduced between 10-20 percent to avoid fungal growth.

Packaging

Avoid packaging in dirty materials and avoid practices of sneezing during packaging, ensure quality checks are done at one stage including no reuse of packaging materials.

Ensure the packaging environment is clean and ready dried mukene should be package to avoid fungal infection.

Avoid exposing packaged mukene in dump conditions and proper sorting and grading should be done.  Packaging premises should have good ventilation and remove physical materials such as debris, sand and stones that might have fallen in dried fish.

The product should be adequately sorted ready for consumption.

Storage

The sanitation of the stores must be up to date with no dust, fumes from vehicles and pests

Avoid over piling packaged fish in the stores to eliminate mould and no one must climb and step on packaged fish.

The fish must be stored in gummy bags with aeration and kept in ventilated storehouse. The bags must be labelled with ID numbers

There has to be no access to vermin such as snakes, lizards and birds in the store and the store should be protected from rain

Transporting

Avoid over loading trucks used to transport mukene to avoid accidents and the means of transport must be fast to avoid wasting of fish along the way.

The fish must not be transported with other mercantile and cover the trucks properly in case of rain and avoid carrying passengers in trucks carrying mukene.

Marketing

It is not good to sell the fish on bare ground because it will be contaminated with soil and traders must avoid using dirty containers for selling the fish.

It is important to carry out grading as quality check and the fish must be sold on raised surface. In retailing avoid using metallic rusted containers or contaminated plastic containers

Ensure the surface mukene is sold is clean and dry and ensure the containers used for measuring are dry and clean. It is illegal to sell fish containing fungi because it not healthy for human body. The fish seller must as well be clean.

Market

Poor handling is costly.

Poor handling results in the fish being mixed with sand and animal droppings, or it being stepped on or eaten by birds. Insufficient storage facilities see most silver fish laid out on plain cement in unventilated rooms. This causes the fish to change colour, from silver to brown or grey, and the resulting bad smell, taste and appearance affects the market price deterring many people from eating it.