ILOILO CITY — The Department of Agriculture (DA) through its Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), is planning to establish an ice plant in every province with fishing grounds, starting this year until 2019.
BFAR Regional Director Remia Appari said Monday that the ice plant will be established in partnership with a coastal municipality.
The plan was broached during BFAR’s management committee meeting with Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol last week.
Aparri said this is in response to the data that fisherfolk incur some 30 to 40 percent post-harvest losses due to lack of cold storage.
As to how big the facility is, she said that it will be based on the production of the area that will be served. BFAR, she noted, will allot PHP3 to PHP5 million for every ice plant that will be established.
“This is expected to increase their income with the reduction in the post-harvest losses. It will also minimize the dependency of fisherfolk from getting all the fish from the sea,” she said.
BFAR is still to craft the guidelines on who will manage the facility. It can either be the local government unit if they have the capability or they may request fund from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
On the other hand, she also revealed that the open season for sardines, herring and mackerel in the Visayan Sea has already started after the closed season that was implemented through Fisheries Administrative Order 167, ended last February 15.
Aparri said they are expecting an increase of some 100 million metric tons in the volume of harvest of the said species as a result of the closed season. “This constitutes about four percent of the existing harvest,” she said.
The increased volume of sardines, herring and mackerel in the market may result in decrease in prices, thus the establishment of the ice plant is deemed important.
With this facility, the fishers can stock their harvest while there is “abundance of fish after the declaration of the fishing season,” Aparri said. (Perla Lena/PNA)
