From food to feed? Omena, tilapia and the changing uses of small fish in Lake Victoria

Across Lake Victoria, small pelagic fish such as omena are an important source of affordable animal protein and livelihoods. At the same time, in line with its blue economy ambitions, Kenya has witnessed a rapid expansion of tilapia farming, generating growing demand for aquafeed and its constituent ingredients. This paper examines whether, and how, these two issues are connected through the use of omena in fishmeal and aquafeed. Building on inconclusive fieldwork around Kisumu in 2023 and 2026 in connection to the SMALLFISH4FOOD project, we trace changing pathways through which omena moves from lake to market, feed mill and consumer, asking how expanding demand from aquaculture may reshape its availability and accessibility as food. We situate these changes within broader debates about the blue economy and the commodification of small fish, and examine the distributional consequences of competing uses for fishers, fish traders and low-income consumers.