PANGASINAN maintains its position as the country’s biggest producer of milkfish (bangus), besting the combined yield of two other major producers.

“If you combine the production of Central Luzon and Western Visayas (particularly Iloilo), the province of Pangasinan has even more,” said Dr. Westly Rosario, chief of the National Integrated Fisheries Technology and Development Center (NIFTDC) based in Dagupan.

Central Luzon and Western Visayas also trail Region 1(Ilocos) in the production of bangus.

Within the Ilocos Region, bangus production in Pangasinan dwarfs the combined production in La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte.

Rosario, in an interview after last week’s inauguration of the P120-million Philippine/Dagupan-Korea Seafood Processing Plant, said Pangasinan’s advantage is in having fish cages in the coastal areas of Bolinao, Anda, Sual, and Alaminos City, all within Western Pangasinan.

ZONING

The milkfish that comes from Dagupan is considered as the tastiest and the city supplies the market with at least five metric tons of bangus daily.

Dagupan raises bangus in fishponds and fish pens teeming in its various rivers.

However, Rosario observed that the fish pens in Dagupan need zoning regulation.

Western Pangasinan, which produces bangus in ponds, pens and cages, unloads at least 13 metric tons of fish daily in Dagupan and Metro Manila.

Rosario also considers the National Bangus Research Center and hatchery located at the 24-hectare NIFTDC in Barangay Bonuan Binloc, Dagupan City as a big boon to the bangus industry.

The hatchery, the first of its kind in the country, now produces 13 million bangus fry, from only four million in previous years.

Before the construction of the hatchery, Philippine bangus farmers were importing fry from Taiwan and Indonesia.

He said the national Bangus Research Center as well as the Asian Fisheries Academy, both put up with the help of then Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., is now a training center for fish farmers who want to produce bangus fry in commercial scale.

The BFAR also set up a laboratory facility fitted for environmental monitoring at NIFTDC, with equipment coming from Norway which are considered as the most modern in the country today.–LM

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