In Panabo City, every Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays of the week, the coastal road of Panabo City comes alive as early as 2:00 o’clock dawn. Here, 2 to 4 six-wheeler trucks carrying fish containers and ice as well as air-filled plastic bags of bangus fingerlings start arriving. Dozens of private and public utility vehicles, motorcycles, and tricycles ferrying compradors come and go. Along the shore, a motorized boat tows a raft carrying a large vat filled with crushed ice towards one of the fish cages.
In barely two hours, fresh grown bangus, still alive and wiggling are landed in the bagsakan area. Local womenfolk sort the fish by size, while men take charge of weighing containers of sorted bangus. Another group takes care of icing the fish and loading it onto closed vans for delivery to the market.
By 8:00 AM, 5,000 to 6000 kilograms of bangus would have been landed. At about the same time, some 30,000 bangus fingerlings would have been unloaded and seeded into fish cages to be grown to market size in the next 4 months.
This scene is fast becoming a permanent sight along the shoreline of the sprawling 1,075 hectare Panabo Mariculture Park, Panabo City, Davao del Norte. This is the emerging mariculture hub in the South.
Early Beginning
Five years ago, BFAR Director Malcolm I. Sarmiento, Jr. tinkered on the idea of putting up mariculture parks in the sea to be operated much like that of an industrial estate on land just like the Export Processing Zone Authority. Basic facilities that include a mooring system were set up by the Department of Agriculture thru the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in an area in the sea by marine technologists identified as ideal for fish farming activities.
Along with the local government unit and other stakeholders, a management council was organized, a development plan was laid down to ensure the health of the environment and the sustainability of the mariculture ventures.
To date, there are now 36 mariculture parks located in strategic areas throughout the country; 10 in Luzon, 15 in the Visayas and 11 in Mindanao, with the newly launched parks in Rizal, Zamboanga del Norte and Compostela Valley in Davao del Norte.
Empowering the fishermen
In the Panabo Mariculture Park , bangus sells at an average of P86.00 (per kilogram) farm gate price. After four months of operation, a 10m x 10m x 5m cage stocked with 15,000 bangus fingerlings easily harvests an average of 6000 kilograms of fish.
With production cost of P70.00-P75.00 per kilogram, a fish farmer could easily earn some P90,000.00 per cage or a total of P180,000.00 for 2 cropping periods per year.
“This is a far departure from the usual 2 to 3 kilos of fish caught on ordinary days by a marginal fisherman”, said Sarmiento. “This is what the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources would like the fisherman to be an empowered fish farmer who has the ability to raise fish under conditions that would be to his advantage”, he stressed.
To further boost the revenues, a fish farmer can also grow danggit or samaral in tandem with the bangus in a system called aqua-polyculture. After one cropping, with 1680 pieces fingerlings, the danggit could grow to 100 kilograms which could fetch an additional cash of P8,800.00.
Rent-a-Cage Scheme
Operating one unit of a 10m x 10m x 5m fish cage requires a hefty amount of money, Sarmiento said. A new investor needs to shell out some P470,000.00 for a bamboo fish cage or P576,000.00 for a GI pipe cage. This amount covers the cost of the cage, fingerlings, feeds and labor, among others during the grow-out period. Considering the high cost of investment, BFAR encourages the fishermen to organize themselves into cooperatives and enroll in its “Rent-a-Cage Program”.
“Under this scheme, the fishermen may start raising fish and pay the cage rent, including the cost of production after selling their produce”, Sarmiento suggested. Within a period of two years at an average of 4 harvests, the group would be able to pay in full the cost of the cage and acquire additional cages for their business venture. To date, a total of 5 fisherfolk-families are currently availing of the program.
Sustaining the development
The Panabo Mariculture Park in a span of only two years after the BFAR had set up its two demo cages in the area, there are now 140 operational cages owned by 53 investors. Three of the 34 private investors are from Taiwan, Ecuador and Japan who are married to Filipinas and are now residents of Panabo.
The park can accommodate a total of 600 fish cages, 100 of which is intended for marginalized organizations, and 500 units for private investors. BFAR through its Regional Fisheries Training Center in Panabo provides training and technical assistance to investors and fisherfolk who are interested to venture into bangus production to ensure sustainability.
RFTC-Panabo Center Director Dr. Andrew M. Ventura said, “the center also helps market the produce thru its market linkages and in the creation of viable local market outlets.” “The production from the Mariculture Park goes to the Panabo Public Market, and to contract buyers from Tagum City, General Santos City, and Davao City”, he added. As of October 2008, the total production of the Panabo Mariculture Park reached 217.50 metric tons valued at P18.73 million.
P30 Million loan
The city government of Panabo formally applied for a P30 million loan package from the Development Bank of the Philippines to finance the program dubbed DBP Sustainable Mariculture Investment Program to be used for infrastructure development and to provide loans to investors. Panabo City Mayor Atty. Jose L. Silvosa, Jr. spearheaded the conduct of a workshop with the BFAR-RFTC, DBP, Panabo LGU and the cooperative group to help the LGU in the preparation of business plans.
According to Mayor Silvosa, the loan will be used to finance the construction of a fish landing area, a warehouse, and ice plant that will ensure the quality and safety of the bangus harvested in the mariculture park. As a multi-sector operated venture, the development plan of the park is participatory with the sustainability and protection of the marine environment, Silvosa added.
Livelihood Generation
The mariculture park now employs 135 locals as caretakers, harvesters and divers. Some earns income from the construction, maintenance, and repair of the fish cage nets, hauling of feeds and handling and sorting of bangus after harvest, Ventura reported. There are many other investment areas that are waiting for takers. These include fish feeds supply, fish hatcheries, ice and cold storage plants, processing plants for value-adding, cage maintenance, and manufacture of packaging materials, among others.
Interested parties who may like to invest in mariculture parks must pass trainings at the BFAR RFTC in Panabo. The local government requires letter of intent, application form, business plan, city business permit and lease agreement from the would-be investors.
The City Mayor manages the Panabo Mariculture park. He chairs the Executive Management Council with the BFAR as co-chair. Its members include the Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Management Council of Panabo City , Society of Aquaculture Engineers of the Philippines; Barangay captains of Brgy. JP Laurel, Cagangohan, and San Pedro; DENR-CENRO; Chairs of Sanggunian Panglungsod committees on Environment, Tourism, Cooperative, SUCs; DepEd, LGU-PAGRO, Tagum City; BFAR RO-9 and RFTC-Panabo; NGOs and PFO Davao del Norte. ### (BFAR) /MP
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