Agriculture Business Week

Three times weekly, Panabo City comes alive as early as 2 a.m. when container loads of fresh bangus are whisked into the loading area, promptly sorted out according to size, iced, and then loaded onto vans for delivery to the market.

By 8 a.m. the total haul would have reached five to six tons, and 30,000 fingerlings would have also been unloaded and seeded into fish cages offshore to be grown to market size again in four months for the next harvest time.

This bustling activity is now a regular scene on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at the shoreline of the 1,075-hectare Panabo Mariculture Park in Panabo City, Davao del Norte.

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Typhoon Emong ravaged aquaculture areas of Western Pangasinan gets a much needed boost towards recovery – Finfish Hatcheries, Incorporated or FHI just donated one million pieces Sarangani fry to the bangus growers in the area through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Region I for them to enhance their capability to recover from their losses.

Bangus industry of Pangasinan contributes about 120-140MT bangus daily to Metro Manila markets. The 525M worth of damages wrought by then Typhoon Emong was felt, specially around Luzon area, by consumers and traders and they had to deal with unpredictable bangus supply 2 to 3 weeks after the typhoon, including locally based businesses involved in the value-adding of bangus.

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Sleek and silvery, beloved because of its mild, sweet flesh, and its melt-in-the-mouth belly fat, bangus or milkfish is a favorite Filipino fish. Not only that, it is considered a national icon as it is part of the country’s national heritage.

Today, bangus is making waves in other countries as well. “We export bangus to countries where there are a lot of Filipinos and overseas foreign workers like the Middle East and the United States,” reports Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, the executive director of the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD).

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,” the PCAMRD claims.

“Bangus has always been the most important species cultured in the Philippines in terms of area and production,” admits Dr. Guerrero, who also popularized tilapia production and consumption in the country.

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Learn the basics of aquaculture’s wonder creature, the Pangasius.

Pangasius also acquired pet names like iridescent shark, Siamese shark or Psutchi catfish, but despite its name, iridescent shark is not a shark, but a catfish. This fish is also associated with the aquarium hobby or as swai or striped catfish in the food fish market, or as panga (though this name should be rather used for Pterogymnus laniarius).

They are found in Southeast Asia in the Mekong basin as well as the Chao Phraya River, and are heavily cultivated for food there. It has also been presented into other river basins as a food source and is ordinary in the fish keeping hobby. It is named `iridescent’ for its glow or iridescence exhibited in juveniles.

In 2007 alone, the amount produced in the fish farms of the Mekong Delta will reach a million metric tons and it is expected that there will be more that would be reach until 2010. The fish is distributed already into 65 markets all over the world and one of the most successful whitefish species of all times and is probably only comparable to the seawater catches of Cod and Alaska Pollack. And certainly, the International Whitefish Convention, which meets in London this year is looking forward to more discussions about Pangasius.

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Dagupan is noted for its Bonuan bangus, but Ermin Garcia Jr., editor of Sunday Punch, says its residents may wake up one day buying and eating authentic Dagupan bangus raised in Taiwan. Find out why and how in this portion of his recent column:

“Soon, Dagupan in Taiwan. 1 four Dagupan bangus raisers… think they are being unfairly cheated by local traders who pass off their bangus from other sources as Dagupan bangus, they’ve not seen the worst yet.

And while many Dagupan bangus growers continue to be indifferent to the pollution of our rivers that results in massive fish kill, they have another thing coming that would soon promise the demise of the Dagupan bangus industry.

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Some local folk consider suso(cerithedia cingualta) as a delicacy, but this mollusk is claimed to be a pest for brackishwater bangus when its population increases, preventing the formation of lablab mat or lumut that serves as food for bangus. This condition is blamed for the low production rate of bangus in brakiswater ponds.

Suso, however, becomes abundant only in ponds in mangrove areas. They thrive in disturbed and polluted sediments such as in fishponds where other species are excluded or killed. There, they live their entire life cycle, with the adults laying their eggs throughout the year.

Since bangus ponds are built mostly in mangrove areas, the food-rich environment that favors bangus growth and development likewise favors the growth and development of suso.
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Students of the Pangasinan State University (PSU) College of Fisheries in Binmaley, Pangasinan have found that processed bangus bones and spines can be used as feed for tilapia.

Conducted by Dan Clark Rosario, May Ann Catabay, and Efren Soy under the guidance of Dr. Rosie Abalos, the experiment was set up for 62 days at the National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center in Bonuan Binloc, Dagupan City. They used 360 fingerlings of Molobicus saline tilapia.

Results of the study showed that tilapia given feeds containing 20 to 25 percent processed bangus bones and spines had better survival and growth rate than those fed with 100 percent commercial feed. In effect, inclusion of processed bangus bones and spines in the commercial feed formulation might lessen the cost of feeds.

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Imagine 10 to 15 tons of fish mostly bangus, harvested everyday. That’s how much fish the Alcantara Group is harvesting daily from their fishponds and fishcages in Sarangani, Souther Mindanao.

Some 60 percent of that volume is processed into various products with added value and sold abroad as well as in the country. Some 70 percent of the processed products are exported to the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and Guam. The Alcantara Group is easily the biggest exporter of bangus products in the Philippines carrying the Sarangani brand. And it is not surprising why it was given the Golden Shell Award and Presidential Citation as the country’s top exporter of bangus products in 2004. The company was recognized for excellence in product design, manufacturing and marketing.

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Many years back, the government passed a law prohibiting the export of bangus fry or fingerlings. That’s understandable because at that time the only fingerlings available to local growers were the fry caught from the wild. If fingerlings were allowed to he exported, the often seasonal, and scarce supply would be further depleted to the jeopardy of local raisers.

Up to this time, not a single fingerling may be allowed to be exported. One fisheries expert believes, however, that the time has come to allow the export of bangus fry. The fellow is Rene Bocaya, the marketing manager of the country’s biggest fish hatchery, the Finfish Hatcheries, Inc. based in Sarangani province in Southern Mindanao. The hatchery is now producing some 800 million Sarangani bangus fry a year.

Bocaya explains that the bangus industry requires a yearly supply of 2.5 billion fingerlings. While the total production of fry from local sources is not enough to meet all the requirements, it makes sense to allow the export of locally produced fingerlings today. Aside from Finfish Hatcheries, there are other smaller bangus hatcheries in Pangasinan, Negros Oriental, Iloilo (two), and Bohol. While these hatcheries, as of the moment, cannot meet total requirements of local growers, the Philippines is importing a lot of cheaper fingerlings from Indonesia.

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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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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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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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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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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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