Cheap farmed Chinese imports are filling in the gap left by local fishermen, since fish stocks in Lake Victoria have plunged over the past two decades, and prices have risen sharply as a result.
Kenyan fishermen dragging a net in Lake Vitoria.
People prefer to buy local fish but it has proved impossible so they purchase imported tilapia from China being sold by local fishermen to earn a living, BBC News reported.
Tilapia and frozen mackerel made up 85 per cent of Kenya's 2016 fish imports, with 68 per cent coming from China. In 2017 China remained Kenya's top source of fish imports, according to the national statistics office.
Other fish product imports included tuna, Nile perch, sardines, fish feed and fish waste.
Kenya also imports fish from Japan, South Korea, Uganda, Tanzania, Vietnam, Mauritius, Germany, Norway and South Africa.
Chinese farmed tilapia.
Meanwhile, Fish catches from Lake Victoria have plummeted by more than half over the past two decades due to overfishing and pollution. Over the same period Kenya's population has doubled.
Vast stretches of water hyacinths, an invasive weed, along the shorelines, have also caused severe problems for the country's fishermen. The thick, interwoven carpet of the plants means that smaller boats can struggle to get out to clear water.
Kenya's Lake Victoria fishermen now bring in an estimated 140,000 tonnes of fish per year, little more than a quarter of the 500,000 required.
Not all the frozen Chinese fish on sale in Kenya is within its best before date
Official statistics reveal that from 2008 to 2018, Kenya's highest production was 182,626 tonnes in 2014, the most recent official data shows. This fell to 135,197 tonnes in 2017.
The Treasury stated that the country aims to raise its yearly output to 231,359 tonnes, explaining it would do this by curbing illegal fishing in Kenya's waters and investing in a fishing fleet for the country.
Kenya can produce 14 million tonnes of fish a year with a value of KES 50 billion (over USD 492,000), a 2013 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated. This is if it uses all 1.4 million hectares identified as suitable for fish farming.
Kenya's fishmongers are often reluctant to admit that their fish is Chinese.
On the other hand, Chinese companies and their Kenyan partners seized the opportunity, and are now said to be exporting more than USD 17 million of fish to Kenya annually, more than double the amount three years ago.
It was an easy gap for the Chinese to fill because the freshwater tilapia that they farm on a vast scale is from the same broad species that Kenyans mostly catch in Lake Victoria. So for Kenyan consumers the fish look and taste very similar.
The Chinese fish is just considerably cheaper, selling for as little as USD 1.70 per kg, compared with about USD 5 per kg for the local catch.
In November last year, the Kenyan government moved to try to protect the Lake Victoria fishing industry by imposing an import ban on foreign tilapia. But the restrictions were lifted in January after China's ambassador to Kenya, Li Xuhang, referred to the ban as a "trade war".
Some say that the long-term future of fishing on Lake Victoria is in doubt
It was also reported that China had threatened to freeze funding for a new railway line connecting Kenya with Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.
However, the official explanation from Kenya's Department for Fisheries for the U-turn was that "a huge shipment of [Chinese] fish was held up at the port of Mombasa, negatively impacting local supplies".
What Kenyan authorities are continuing with is efforts to improve fish stocks in the lake, for example, by arresting fishermen who fish too close to the breeding areas near the shores to save on time and fuel. But this deterrent continues to increase prices in the short term, as fishermen have to travel further out into the lake.
Chinese Government is worried about Kenya's ban on tilapia imports
The biggest importer of Chinese fish in Kenya is a company called East African Sea Food. Its director, John Musafari, says that while the farmed Chinese tilapia is high quality, the low prices are possible because the fish is fed on rice bran, which is cheap and plentiful.
The executive adds that fish farming has not taken off in Kenya because fish feed "is extremely expensive" in the country due to the fact that it is currently being made from maize, which is also the country's staple food.
He wants to see more investment in the development of cheaper fish feed in Kenya. "That could really boost the country's aquaculture," he says.
Although researchers predict a decline in Africa's annual fish consumption per person from 10 kilograms in 2015 to 8.5 kilograms in 2030 and 7.7 kilograms in 2050, China will continue to loom large in Kenya's fish market until local production improves.
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