Agriculture Business Week

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 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

The recent fury of typhoon Cosine wrought havoc to the fishponds, pens, and cages in the provinces of Pangasinan and La Union. This led thousands of fisherfolks not only to lose their regular income but also deprived them of the assets to rebuild their devastated businesses. In line with this, the Department of Agriculture, through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) liaisoned with Finfish Hatcheries, Inc., a pioneering company considered to be the biggest fish hatchery in Asia in dispersing io million Sarangani bangus fry to the fishpond operators of Pangasinan and La union in order to mitigate the effects of the typhoon.

“Of the 10 million Sarangani Bangus fry, one million of them were donated by Finfish Hatcheries,Inc. in support of the very noble purpose of BFAR,” said Rene Bocaya, the company’s national sales manager. The recipients were fisherfolks from La Union, Alaminos and Dagupan City, the towns of Infanta, Bolinao, Labrador, Sual, Bugallon, Calasiao, San Fabian, Mangaldanan and Binmaley.

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Posted on September 23rd, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish. Comments: 1

The Alcantara Group of Companies in Southern Mindanao has become well known for its Sarangani bangus the past several years. That is easily understandable. After all, it harvests about 18 tons of bangus every day and exports most of it in processed form to the United States and some other places. It’s the country’s biggest bangus exporter. At the same time, the Alcantara group, through its Finfish Hatcheries, produces some 800 million Sarangani bangus fingerlings a year, almost half the total requirements of the country.

Of course, many years back, the Alcantara group (also known simply as Alsons) was famous for its Sarangani cattle. The cattle project is still there but not as big an operation as it used to be. The company is also into mango (8,000 trees), 160 hectares of bananas (cardaba, Cavendish and lakatan) and over 30 hectares of pummelo.

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Posted on August 24th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish, Vermiculture. Comments: 1

Our country has contributed around 55% of the total world bangus production, and experts say growing our national fish is the next big thing.

Sleek and silvery, beloved because of its mild, sweet flesh and its melt-in-the-mouth belly fat, the milkfish or bangus, our national fish, is a favorite Philippine fish. Today, bangus is making waves in such countries as United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong where Filipinos are either working or living.

The Philippines is one of the top bangus producers in the world, along with Indonesia and Taiwan. “Until recently, the country has contributed around 55 percent share of the world bangus production,” reports the Laguna-based Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD).

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Posted on August 23rd, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish. Comments: None