Socio-economic contribution of fishing to people's livelihood in Uganda :

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing the socio economic contribution of fishing to people's livelihood in Namasagali sub county Kamuli District, since, it, was believed that Upper Victoria Nile stretch contributed a lot to people's livelihood in the community, but little or scanty information was known to policy makers. The role of this research was to create awareness to the managers on how important this upper stretch is to the community around in terms of livelihood and income. The data was collected from three landing sites that are; Nsagabirye, Kabeto, and Kalama on the upper Victoria stretch using interview method' with the help of questionnaire as tool. The. data was analyzed using Excel software mainly and SPSS in few cases and data was presented by use of descriptive means like tables line graphs, pie charts, and column bar graphs and so on. The results revealed that most of the respondents were male (84%) and people depended on fishing activity as their source of livelihood (64%). The study further revealed that the respondents were mostly fulltime fishers who carried out fishing mostly from 3-4 days and 5-7 days (31.3%); and the fisheries activities carried out included fishing (64%), fish processing (6.25%) and fish trade (78.13%). Apart from fishing as their source of income, most respondents carried out crop farming as an. alternative source of income (54%) and fish trade (30%) and others. The average income of most respondents earned from fishing activity is UGX 6000-15000 (56.3%) a day of fishing and the average income of most respondents earned from alternative sources is UGX 50000 and below (46.2%). The common methods of fishing were gillnets (69%) and basket traps (47%). Since the study revealed that people depended on fishing as their main source of income and livelihood but could still not help them move from low income status to middle income status, therefore the study recommends promotion of aquaculture and other alternative sources of income like crop farming and livestock farming to help them improve on their standards of living or sensitize the community to practice commercial fishing, but to also know their costs and efforts.