Reduce fish loss and boost livelihoods in Samar, the Philippines

The change we seek is a reduction of fish waste for small-scale fishers, who are often on the water for long stretches of time, in small canoes that lack shade, without ice to preserve catch, and far from well-equipped landing sites with access to refrigeration or other methods of preservation. As a result, these fishers are losing about 40% of their catch – in a province where 60% of households face food insecurity. What they need is a small investment from the national government for some equipment, technical assistance from public universities, and a model to follow. Our role will be to get the national funding, coordinate technical support from academics, and organize some pioneering local governments to provide the model.

The catch of fisherfolk is almost entirely used for domestic consumption, so not only is that a loss of income for the fisher, but also a loss of food for the community. Small-scale fisheries lose from 25% to 75% in the value chain. Higher losses are likely in more remote and poor areas.

We have a baseline of fish consumption, state of nutrition, and fish loss in Samar. We will regularly collect data on species and monthly volume of landings, seasonality, market or fish distribution flow, and their estimated post-harvest fish loss (amounts by value chain node and drivers), as well as fish consumption and state of nutrition in the area, to measure changes.

If successful, we estimate that we can reduce wastage of fish from 40% to 10%. A scaled national effort could make direct post-harvest improvements available to the nearly 10 million Filipinos dependent on small-scale fisheries. Moreover, if we assume a (conservative) post-harvest loss rate of approximately 15% across the Philippines, halving that would save an estimated 133,000 metric tons of fish. This is equivalent to 1.5 million additional seafood meals every day in a country where 3.3 million children under 5 are stunted, all without having to catch a single additional fish.