Comparative Analysis of Physical Post-harvest Losses of Rastrineobola argentae Dried using Various Drying Methods along Lake Victoria, Tanzania

Abstract

Rastrineobola argentae (Dagaa) has been the major commercial fishery of Lake Victoria contributing 67.4 % of total fish catch. In Tanzania it constitutes over 38% of the total fish landings from the Lake. However, there is a high level of post-harvest loss of about 59%. To minimize the losses, various post-harvest innovations processing methods have been developed in previous studies, but still there is limited empirical evidences showing the effectiveness of these innovations to justify their adoption. In the present study, a completely randomised experimental design was conducted to determine the effect of three drying methods of dagaa namely, solar tent, bare sand, and raised racks in reduction of physical post-harvest losses of dagaa in Mwanza, Lake Victoria.
Data were collected by simple random sampling of dagaa from boats, key informant interviews and desk review of secondary data. The results showed that solar tent reduced post-harvest losses up to 24.9% compared to raised racks (14.9%) and bare sand (10%). The results showed significance differences (p<0.00), whereby the differences were noted between solar tent with raised racks (p=0.02) and between solar tents with bare sand (p=0.00) only. Based on the findings the study recommends that solar tent innovation should be promoted to commercial scale to contribute in reducing dagaa post-harvest losses. The reduction of post-harvest losses implies more quantities of dagaa will be available for nutrition and income.