Fishing contributions to the household income in Mafia District, Tanzania

Abstract

Abstract. Mpemba A, Mombo FM. 2019. Fishing contributions to the household income in Mafia District, Tanzania. Ocean Life 3: 74-85. The fishing sector is responsible for providing critical income for many families within fishing communities. Fishing activities explain the levels of income which, in the end, indicate whether a given fishing household is benefiting. This study was undertaken to assess the contribution of fishing to household income in Mafia District, Tanzania. The data were collected from randomly sampled 120 household heads using several methods such as questionnaire survey, Focus Group Discussions (FGD), checklist and field observation. The collected data were analyzed using inferential statistics, descriptive statistics, and content analysis. A box plot was used to establish the significant relationship between household income contributions from fishing and other economic activities. In addition, content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data. The results revealed that several economic activities are conducted in the study area, where 41.47% of respondents indicated that fishing is the major economic activity in their households. The results showed that average household incomes from conducting fishing alone as the main economic activity was 51,250 TZS, fish-related activities were 15,000 TZS and other economic activities were 5,000 TZS per day. Since the study has revealed that fishing contributes to higher income in the household than other activities, therefore the study recommends that most of the households in the study area do not have access to credit for improving their activities, especially fishing the government should provide improved fishing gears for fishers with a low-interest rate.