Kenya Ministry of Fisheries Development

TraceSoft Limited,  in conjunction with the Ministry of Fisheries are in the process of deploying a  proof of concept (pilot) targeted at transforming the Kenya’s Fish Landing sites  into viable and sustainable centers of excellence in order to enhance competitiveness of  the fishing  sub sector.

Through a Private Public Sector Partnership, TraceSoft Limited, a leading Application Service Provider in the Agri-Food Sector, has been given authority by the ministry to develop and roll out an automated inspection and document management system which once complete is intended for roll out in over 148 fish landing sites around the Lake Victoria, Lake Turkana and Indian Ocean.

The objectives of the proof of concept are:

• To re-engineer the Beach Management Units-BMU (the management structure of each fish landing site) into viable business entities with quantifiable social benefit to the fisher community and the environment.

• To empower beach management units as the key provider of quality control and traceability documentation to the industry in line with international standards.

• To channel social responsibility efforts towards equitable resource management at BMUs as a life line of community livelihoods- includes social and environmental issues.

• Empower BMUs as the key sourcing agent of fish product by detangling payment system, price discovery and fish collection. This will lead to equitable management of payments to fisher communities and processors. Fisher communities will be better paid in a transparent manner.

• To Invest hard and soft infrastructure in BMUs to provide competitive world class services to the industry e.g cold storage, scaling/cleaning, -

• In preparation for the upcoming EU regulation on IUU relating to electronic catch certificates, empower BMUs / ministry inspection officers with tools and technology for data capture of catch information and statistics at source. This information will be available online on a web based platform accessible to the market, agents, exporters and ministry officials.

Empower BMU with ICT facilities and professional management capacities: Each BMU will be facilitated with software and hardware for managing : automated fish weight registrations, safety and traceability data capture connected to the internet, in addition to automated inspection services with documents availed online.