Agriculture Business Week

A scientist who developed the technology of transporting live fish to distant places is eyeing the possibility of tuna ranching, which could tremendously increase the value of the fish.

He is Dr. Bonifacio Comandante of Dumaguete City whose technology could put fish (such as lapu-lapu, seabass and also vannamei and tiger prawns) to sleep while in transit and then awakened upon reaching their destination.

His prize-winning technology adds tremendous value to the marine products because live fish and prawns command much higher prices than the dead ones. ‘ For instance, live vannamei will often retail at P600 per kilo while the dead counterpart may only fetch half the price. The same could be true with lapu-lapu and other species.

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Posted on November 20th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Fish, Tuna. Comments: None

Agribusiness people have their own strategies. Some go for the mass market while others go for special niche markets.

Just like the A&L Fishfarm and Hatchery of Sampalok, Apalit, Pampanga. The company started growing catfish in 1980 which was profitable to raise for a number of years. However, when the competition became very keen because so many others got into the business, Augusto Tycangco thought of shifting to red tilapia in 2000. Red tilapia which is also known m the market as Kingfish, commands a higher price and the competition is not that many.

Marie Tycangco, the founder’s daughter who serves as marketing and sales manager, says that Kingfish is an excellent alternative to the more expensive lapulapu. Ex-farm, the Kingfish fetches P150 to P200 per kilo. The most desired size is half-kilo per fish.

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Posted on November 19th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Catfish. Comments: None

Milkfish (Chanos chanos) is out- “National Fish” and the most important cultured foodfish in the Philippines. About 90 percent of our milkfish production comes from brackishwater ponds with the rest coming from fresh water pens/cages. In 2004, we produced 203,000 metric tons of milkfish with a value of P10.9 billion making our country the top producer in the world.

Although milkfish farming has been practiced in the Philippines for centuries, the production methods have remained at the extensive level for brackishwater pond culture with the use of fertilizers for producing the natural food of the fish. While the average productivity of less than 1 ton per hectare for our brackishwater ponds is relatively low compared to intensive culture in pens and cages that can yield as much as 30 tons per hectare, only the former is considered to be sustainable.

For milkfish farming to be sustainable, there is need for methods that will not only provide a good amount of profit for the farmer but also cause little or no damage to the environment on the long term. With the present production systems, only the extensive culture of milkfish in brackishwater ponds appears to be the most sustainable.

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Posted on November 18th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish. Comments: None

Two important developments are happening for bangus in Pangasinan. One, Dagupan City is trying to curb the entry and sale of bangus from other provinces to protect the reputation of the real Bonuan or Dagupan bangus as well as the people patronizing it. Two, a bangus processing plant will be constructed in Dagupan City with funding from the Korean government, through the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

The Dagupan City government has placed “alien bangus” brought into the city market under a watch list, while the authentic Dagupan bangus is put under a tagging procedure. This aims to preserve the reputation of Dagupan as the bangus capital of the world and to protect consumers from buying the “alien” variety, which tastes and smells like mud. Traders from other provinces are now required to present documents to show proof of the origin of their bangus.

On the other hand, the Korean government and KOICA officials visited Dagupan City recently to confirm a grant of US $2 million for the project, which is due for release soon.

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Posted on November 6th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish. Comments: None

The farming of seaweeds is a major industry in the Philippines that provides livelihood and income to thousands of coastal families. In 2006, the Philippines, the top carrageenan producer in the world produced 1,338,597 metric tons of seaweeds, mainly red seaweeds that yield carageenan, a hydrocolloid used in the manufacture of many pharmaceutical, industrial and food products here and abroad.

In recent years, there has been a decline in the productivity of red seaweeds in the Sulu Sea where the bulk of the production comes from. The drop is attributed to many factors such as genetic deterioration (slow growth), lack of nutrients, and adverse environmental conditions.

The application of chemical fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate is practiced in China and Japan for seaweed culture in coastal waters. In the Philippines, seaweed farmers do not apply fertilizer. No studies on the use of fertilizers for increasing growth of seaweeds in coastal waters have been reported yet.

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Posted on October 22nd, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Seaweed. Comments: None

The 2007 Aquatic Technology Competition yielded a rich harvest of technologies that could be commercialized. The competition, which is in its third year, is a brainchild of Dr Rafael D. Guerrero III and his colleagues at the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development. It is being implemented under the auspices of the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Systems.

A team of young engineers garnered the top prize of P150,000 cash for their underwater robot. The robot called Angel One was developed by Roboteknik headed by Michael Poblete, a youthful mechanical engineering graduate of Mapua Institute of Technology. He describes Angel One as an underwater robot with a video camera and propulsion system. Its primary function is to conduct visual inspection of underwater objects and structures.

In aquaculture, the robot can be used to monitor the fish inside the fishpen, their rate of growth using optional scaling lasers, and feed consumption by measuring the amount of falling feed in the bottom of the fishpen. It could be used to spot holes or breaks in the net where high-value fish could escape.

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Posted on October 20th, 2008 under Aquaculture, Technology. Tags: Bangus, Disease, Seaweed, Tilapia. Comments: None

Throughout the past centuries, man sourced its animal protein through hunting or fishing. And in many parts of the world, the main source of animal protein for humans is finfish. However, with fish catch getting smaller from marine waters because of dramatic decline of natural fish stocks caused by increased in fishing pressure and the increase in fish consumption by ever swelling population, especially as the more affluent consumers in the developed countries become more aware of the beneficial effects of fish to one’s health (marine fish is the excellent source of polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids). It is expected that the demand for fish will continue to increase and the only alternative is to farm this sea creature in captivity, i.e. engaging in all aspects of aquaculture activities (from broodstock rearing, hatchery, nursery and grow-out farming).

Turning around the aforementioned problem as an opportunity, the government through its technical agency, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) created a mariculture development program and initially selected suitable sites for 16 Mariculture Parks in 2006. At the present time, there are 36 mariculture parks established in almost all regions of the country. Mariculture parks are seaside equivalent of industrial estates. The aim of the program is to:

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Posted on October 17th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Fish. Comments: None

Small Farmers and Fisherfolk with problems on overproduction during peak season have nothing to worry about. The Kababaihang Masigla ng Nareva Ecija (KMNE), processor of agricultural and fishery products, is looking for potential suppliers of commodities like tomato, tamarind, camias, guava, mushroom, soy beans, ginger; and small tilapia weighing 30 to 50 grams.

Based in flog Baliguag, Quezon, Nueva Ecija, the KMNE was organized in 2000 by its president, Vilma B. Joson, to provide livelihood for the wives of farmers to help these rural women earn additional income for their families.

Among the processed products of the KMNE are dried tomato sweets and jellies, tamarind sweets, hot and spicy and concentrated tamarind juice, sweetened karamay, ginger tea or salabat, tilapia danggit or tilanggit, rice wine, rice coffee, Soya coffee, Soya coffee with mushroom, dried and sweetened kamias, and mango. These products are already registered at the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD).
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Posted on October 9th, 2008 under Aquaculture, Technology. Tags: Dryer. Comments: None

The Mozambique Tilapia(Oreochromis mossamicus) was the first tilapia species from Thailand introduced in the Philippines in 1950. Then regarded as the “wonderfish” for its prolific breeding habit and hardiness, it was widely promoted for backyard freshwater pond culture as a food fish.

The tilapia craze, however, waned in the 1960s due to the poor yields of the fish attributed to its early maturation and uncontrolled reproduction. Becoming mature and capable of breeding at an early age of only 2-3 months and with the capacity to breed as frequent as once a month in ponds, the growth of the fish was stunted with overpopulation.

While freshwater pond culture of the Mozambique tilapia was problematic (without population control), the fish got established in brackishwater waterways and ponds to which it had escaped and became an “invasive non-native species.” Being euryhaline (thriving in fresh and salty waters), it easily adapted itself in the brackishwater environment.
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Posted on October 8th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Mozambique, Tilapia. Comments: None