Agriculture Business Week

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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Posted on July 26th, 2009 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Fish, Milkfish. Comments: 6

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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Posted on March 10th, 2009 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Dagupan, Milkfish, Taiwan. Comments: None

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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Posted on December 28th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish, Pest, Suso. Comments: None

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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Posted on December 5th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish, Sarangani. Comments: 16

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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Posted on November 28th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Fish, Milkfish. 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 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: 5

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: 11

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: 1

Cagayan De Oro City. The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources is eyeing at least a 25 percent increase in bangus(milkfish) production in Region 10 beginning next year following the recent opening of the first government operated milkfish hatchery in Sagay, Camiguin.

In his report to Agriculture Secretary Yap, BFAR national director Malcolm I. Sarmiento, Jr. said that the hatchery is the third of four interlinked facilities programmed to be established in this region that would ensure the holistic development of the bangus industry of Northern Mindanao.

“Next year, we expect to start the groundwork for the construction of a P10M fish processing plant as negotiations are already underway for the acquisition of the lot”, Sarmiento added.

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Posted on August 1st, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Bangus, Milkfish, Mindanao. Comments: None