2021 report on the smallfish project

Abstract

This report presents a summary of activities undertaken by the CSIR-Food Research Institute team of the SmallFishFood Project. The contents of this document are captured as activities conducted in the four quarters of the year under review. In the first quarter of 2021, the project team embarked on a field trip to evaluate the extent of uptake of the technologies. It came to light that, the fish processors who were predominantly women, were satisfied with the dried fish output from the racks and would have wished that the racks were fairly distributed among them. Also, samples of small fish were shipped to Norway for evaluation of its nutritional content under a PhD research study. The second quarter activities entailed field trips to Ningo-Ahwiam, one of the fishing communities along the western coast of the Greater Accra Region. The Ningo-Ahwiam community whose inhabitants are largely involved in sun drying was selected as a beneficiary community to benefit from the Project interventions. Again, more samples of small fish were shipped to Germany and Norway for analysis in line with a student PhD research. As part of efforts to document research output from the Project, the FRI Team drafted scientific manuscripts for publication in high impact journals. In the third quarter, wooden raised platforms, 40 drying racks and a hammer mill were constructed/fabricated and installed for the Ningo-Ahwiam Community. During the last quarter of 2021, a simple shed was constructed for the Ningo-Ahwiam Community to house the hammer mill. The raised platform and drying racks were presented to the women fish processors in the Community to enable them dry fish hygienically. A training and technology transfer workshop was also organized for the fish processors at the Ningo-Ahwiam Community center