PUERTO PRINCESA CITY — Some 40 bangus (milkfish) farmers in Palawan will undergo a two-day aquaculture training this week to help increase the province’s production of the saltwater fish.
The training set on November 27-28 is aimed at increasing their knowledge in the farming one of the most important seafoods in the Philippines, Augustus Avillanosa of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) said.
He cited a Philippine Statistics Authority data showing that the production of bangus in the province declined from 10,000 metric tons (MT) in 2014 to 4,000 MT in 2017.
“Ang isang problema natin dyan (kung bakit bumaba ang produksyon) ay unang-una ay ‘yung capability ng ating mga farmers plus kulang pa rin sila sa training at basic knowledge (One of the problems why the production went down is first, the capability of our milkfish farmers, training and basic knowledge are not enough),” Avillanosa said on Monday.
Milkfish farming has great potential in Palawan because it has idle fish ponds.
Avillanosa said training the milkfish farmers could be a solution towards increasing production, which is important due to the province’s growing population.
“Ang tinitignan natin dito ay itaas pa ang production per hectare per year ng bawat fishpond kasi halos less than three tons per hectare per year lang ang naha-harvest na milkfish based doon sa approximately 1,500 hectares fish pond na meron tayo sa buong Palawan (We want to increase production per hectare per year in each fish pond because the production right now is just three tons per hectare per year. This is based on the approximately 1,500 hectares fish pond that we have in the entire province),” he added.
The milkfish farmers will be trained by invited resource persons from the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Training Institute in cooperation with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center.
