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Agriculture, forestry and fishing are important sectors of Ghana's economy and improvement in the performance of these sectors is central to the country's current economic recovery programme.1 The severe economic decline which the country went through between the early 1970's and the early 1980's affected poorer socio-economic groups in particular 2 through depressed wage levels and increased unemployment. Also between the late 1970's and the early 1980's , there was a serious decline in national food production and food shortages, which were caused by drought, were exacerbated through the enforced repatriation of over one million Ghanaians in 1983 from Nigeria. In spite of efforts to increase national food production, the country has had to rely to a significant extent on imports, often in the form of food aid, to maintain adequate supplies. Some dependence on imports still exists 3 and the country's relatively high consumption of fish has meant that food imports have included substantial quantities of fish and fish products. Supplies of marine fish from national sources are now limited because of the full exploitation of national stocks and the more restricted access to the waters of other African countries, such as Angola, Namibia and Mauritania. Against this background and with the prospect of further increases in demand from a growing population, any means of expanding the national production of fish is obviously of interest.
