By Adrian Corish
There was a time when fish was not a luxury in The Gambia.
It was breakfast.
It was lunch.
It was dinner.
In coastal towns like Tanji, children grew up knowing the smell of fresh fish before they knew the alphabet. Women smoked and dried fish to feed families and earn a living.
Fishermen returned at dawn with nets heavy enough to bend backs and fill markets.
Today, that reality is gone.
In Tanji one of the country’s most important fishing communities fish is no longer freely available, and when it is available, prices are beyond the reach of most Gambian households.
What was once the people’s protein has become a commodity for the few.
This is not a mystery.
It is not an accident.
It is a policy failure.
And it is driving hunger, poverty, and forced migration.
What changed?
The sea did not suddenly empty itself.
The fish did not vanish on their own.
What changed was who controls Gambian waters and who benefits from them.
For years, industrial foreign fishing vessels have operated off the Gambian coast, extracting fish at a scale local fisherman cannot compete with. These vessels do not fish to feed Gambian families.
They fish for export, fishmeal factories, and foreign markets.
Small pelagic fish sardinella, bonga, ethmalosa once the cheapest and most nutritious protein for ordinary Gambians, are now diverted into industrial supply chains.
The result is brutal and simple
Less fish in local markets
Higher prices
Collapsed livelihoods
Growing hunger
Women fish processors in Tanji report buying less fish, earning less money, and feeding their families less often. Fishermen spend more on fuel, travel further out to sea, and return with smaller catches. Families who once ate fish daily now ration it or replace it with nothing at all.
This is not just an economic issue.
It is a food security crisis.
When fish disappears, people follow
The Gambian Government speaks often about irregular migration.
About young people risking their lives at sea.
But migration does not begin with boats.
It begins when livelihoods collapse.
When a fisherman can no longer fish.
When a fish processor can no longer trade.
When a family can no longer afford protein.
When dignity erodes, day by day.
In coastal communities, the message to young people is loud and cruel
The sea no longer feeds you.
You must look elsewhere.
And so they do.
This did not have to happen
No country with a coastline as rich as The Gambia should be importing hunger.
No fishing community should be priced out of its own ocean.
No government committed to development, stability, and youth retention can afford to ignore this crisis.
Yet regulation has failed.
Monitoring has failed.
Enforcement has failed.
And ordinary Gambians are paying the price with empty plates and broken futures.
What must happen now
This situation can still be stopped but only with urgent, decisive government action.
The Gambian government must
1. Immediately prioritise food security over export profit
Fish that feeds Gambian families must not be sacrificed for foreign markets.
2. Enforce strict limits on industrial fishing and fishmeal production
Especially for species critical to local diets.
3. Protect artisanal fishermen and women processors
They are not informal actors they are the backbone of coastal survival.
4. Restore transparency and public accountability
Gambians deserve to know who is fishing their waters, under what licences, and at what cost.
5. Treat this as a national emergency, not a sectoral issue
Food, migration, employment, and dignity are inseparable.
This is about more than fish
This is about who the economy serves.
This is about whether development includes the poor or excludes them.
This is about whether young Gambians see a future at home or only across dangerous seas.
When fish becomes unaffordable in Tanji, the crisis is already too deep to ignore.
The sea once fed the nation.
If it is allowed to be stripped away unchecked, it will instead push the nation’s children away from its shores.
That is not development.
That is displacement.
And it must stop.
