Agriculture Business Week

Ace Limpin of San Fernando City Pampanga, Christopher “Boyet” Cruz of Hagonoy,  Bulacan, and Mario Aquino of Binmaley, Pangasinan do not know each other personally but they have three things in common.

They are young, handling millions of pesos in their fishpond operations and, raking in lots of profits that most men of their age would not even have a chance to hold even for a few seconds. Most of all, they use Nova Pure PCM Aqua, a product of Novatech Agri-Food Industries, as a bio-organic fertilizer for robust lablab production.

Lablab is fed to prawns, bangus and mudcrab, which the three young men are raising.

What’s more, they all believe that the growth of lablab is a lot better with Nova Pure PCM Aqua than with the use of costly imported urea, which many fishpond operators are still using. Nova Pure PCM Aqua is also much better than raw chicken manure, which many fishpond operators have been using. Unlike raw chicken manure which causes water pollution that may result in huge losses, Nova Pure PCM Aqua is friendly and beneficial to prawns, bangus, and mudcrab, as well as to the environment.

Ace, Boyet, and Mario also claim that that their net income has greatly increased since they started using Nova Pure PCM Aqua.

NovA PURE PCM AQUA
Actually, Nova Pure PCM Aqua is pure chicken manure processed through microbial and enzymatic action and has undergone thermal treatment (about 70°C) for at least 21 days. Ammonia, sulfides, and methane gases in the raw chicken manure have been released during processing and, hence, the bioorganic fertilizer has no foul odor. Likewise, all pathogens are killed during processing. Thus, processing of Nova Pure PCM Aqua prevents the transfer of pathogenic microbes from poultry farms to fishponds. At the same time, it does not produce obnoxious gases after application, which can affect the ozone layer.

As a result, Nova Pure PCM Aqua is used with ease and more convenience in fishpond culture of bangus, tilapia, tiger prawn, and mudcrab. When applied properly, it immediately provides nutrients for the rapid growth and development of lablab and other planktons which are the best natural foods for fingerlings.

It also serves as direct food for fry, fingerlings and adult tilapia and bangus. It also improves the level of dissolved oxygen in the pond with the proliferation of blue and green algae, and helps digest organic matter in the pond, thereby reducing biological oxidation demand (BOD).

Novatech aquaculture specialist Dante Munar said this bio-organic fertilizer does wonders to fishponds. It digests the unused fish feeds and other organic matter that settle in the pond bottom, and thereby eliminates foul odor and obnoxious gases. With its pH range of 6.5-8, it helps correct the pH level of fishpond bottoms.

It also enhances the growth and development of beneficial microbes in the pond bottom, Munar added. In fact, it is in itself a microbial culture of useful fungi, bacteria, and yeasts (probiotics) needed for the maintenance of good soil texture and good water quality in fishponds. For sandy fishpond bottoms, it seals off rapid leaching of water, thereby reducing expenses in pumping water in the ponds.

Moreover, it reduces or eliminates the use of aerators or paddle wheels and helps rejuvenate “dead” fishponds. Likewise, it supplies micronutrients or trace elements for lablab production.

ACE LIMPIN
Twenty-eight-year-old Ace is a commerce graduate, major in computer science, but he prefers to be in fishpond operation just like his parents and siblings. Married with two children. he feels more at home in fishpond operation, as he has been trained on this enterprise. since his youthful years. In fact, his family’s corporation operates more than 700 hectares of fishponds. other than what he and his siblings are operating individually.

Ace has been using Nova Pure PCNI Aqua since last year in his fishponds in Sasmuan, Pampanga. Starting last February, he began to use Biologically Activated Carbon or BAC, the new bioorganic product of Novatech, in combination with PCM Aqua. “I’m not afraid to try new products, as it is better to try than not at all,” Ace said.

He recalls that before he began using BAC, he was losing in his prawn operation due to the poor quality of water that was being brought into his fishponds. Water quality was greatly improved with the use of BAC and he was able to recover his losses.

Ace’s main crop is tiger prawn and he raises bangus and mudcrab as a secondary crop and tertiary crop, respectively. He said bangus is the “aerator” of his fishponds, and it consumes whatever feeds not consumed by tiger prawn. And if the harvest of tiger prawn and bangus is not good, mudcrab becomes his “backup crop” since a kilo of it costs P600 lately.

Ace said that application of Nova Pure PCM Aqua and BAC deodorizes his fishpond and improves the water quality. He started to use this combination in 30 hectares and has decided to use it on a wider area. A hectare requires 250 kilos of Nova Pure PCM Aqua and 500 kilos of BAC.

One of his brothers has followed him already and Ace said it’s highly possible that all his siblings will soon be using this combination. Ace’s father-in-law in Hagonoy, Bulacan has also followed him and started to use the combination in more than 50 hectares. Soon he will be using it completely in his 500-hectare fishpond.

Ace claimed that even if the prawns are not given feeds in one month, they would still grow because of the luxuriant growth of lablab, which resulted from Nova Pure PCM Aqua application. “This is great! I saved 25 to 30 percent on feeds,” he said.

BOYET CRUZ
Like Ace, 33-year-old Boyet is also a commerce graduate, but he majored in management. The ninth of 10 siblings, he is now deeply engrossed in fishpond operation, which he learned from his father who has been in the business since 1960. Today, his family operates a total of 2,000 hectares of fishponds.

Unlike Ace, Boyet’s main crop is bangus (90 percent), which becomes harvestable in five to six months. His secondary crop is tiger prawn, which he raises in 295 hectares; 267 hectares in Hagonoy and 28 hectares in Macabebe, Pampanga. Mudcrab is also his backup crop. In Hagonoy alone, he has 30 couples who take care of his fishponds.

Boyet started using Nova Pure PCM Aqua in February 2007 and since then has been constantly using it as it has greatly reduced his use of costly urea. With 6 bags Nova Pure PCM Aqua per hectare, his use of urea has been reduced to 7 bags from 10 bags. This means that he saved 885 bags of urea which would already cost P1.33 million at P1,500 per bag. Yet, the present trend indicates that the price of urea might even increase further.

On the other hand, the cost of Nova Pure PCM Aqua is only P708,000 even if one bag now costs P400. This means that Boyet gets a net savings of P622,000 per cycle.

“The result of Nova Pure PCM Aqua is splendid,” Boyet said. Lablab production became much better and the growth of fry and fingerlings became much faster, he added.

In his grow-out ponds, there are at least 100,000 fingerlings that are given 3,300 bags of feeds per cycle to attain marketable size. This amount of feeds costs P1.84 million. To produce a piece of bangus weighing 400 grams, he spends P18.40 worth of feeds. Thus, he had to put up a feedmill for the manufacture of fish meal with a capacity of 160 bags (4 tons) an hour for his family’s consumption.

MARIO AQUINO
Operating a total area of 60 hectares of fishponds in Binmaley (20 hectares) and Lingayen (40 hectares), Mario is now in the fourth cycle of using Nova Pure PCM Aqua. He owns a little more than 5 hectares, while he leases the remaining area at P10,000 to P30,000 a hectare per year.

With bangus as his main crop, his stocking rate per hectare is 100,000 imported fry from Indonesia. At P0.23 a piece, he spends P23,000 per hectare or P1.38 million per cycle for fry alone. He said imported fry are a lot cheaper than those caught in the wild of the Philippines, which cost r0.36 to P0.38 a piece. He saves at least 13 centavos per fry or a total of P13,000 per hectare. For 60 hectares, he saves P780,000 by using imported fry.

Compared with Ace and Boyet, Mario’s operation is relatively smaller but he is still handling and at the same time gaining millions of pesos from his operation.

Before he started to use Nova Pure PCM Aqua, he was using raw chicken manure and tobacco dust, which resulted in the death of a good number of his stock. With Nova Pure PCM Aqua, more fry and fingerlings now reach maturity.

Mario stocks his bangus fry or fingerlings a week after the application of Nova Pure PCM Aqua. Then tiger prawn is seeded 10 to 13 days after seeding bangus. He needs at least P50,000 to stock tiger prawn fry in a hectare. The fry are taken from a private hatchery in Dagupan City at P0.10 a piece.

With Nova Pure PCM Aqua, Mario’s survival rate for both bangus and tiger prawn is higher than 70 percent, which is considered already good.

It takes him four months for the bangus fingerlings to be harvestable at three pieces a kilo, which would cost P60-P70. Mario said the price of bigger bangus would be cheaper, as buyers would insist on a lower price. If the fish is not sold one hour after harvest, the operator is already losing a great deal. If the price goes down by r5 per kilo, the operator would already lose P5,000 from a ton of fish.

With the standard 70 percent survival, Mario harvests 23 tons of bangus (3 pieces a kilo) per hectare. With the use of Nova Pure PCM Aqua, the amount of feeds consumed by one piece of bangus is worth P13-P15. His net profit is P8-P10 from every 3 pieces of bangus. Roughly, his net profit would be P61,333 per hectare or over P3 million in one cycle.

As I was interviewing Ace, Boyet, and Mario, I was telling myself I wish I would have a piece of their millions. For me, it’s a dream of a lifetime, but for the three of them those millions are simply a part of their normal everyday life.

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Posted on July 11th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Crab, Fertilizer, Fish, Fishpond, Manure, Milkfish, Shrimp. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.