THE first Seabass Festival was launched by the National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center (NIFTDC) to promote the fish Lates calcarifer as another regular fare on the Filipino dining table.

The festival, held as part of the National Fish Conservation Week, included the actual harvesting of seabass in a less than one-hectare fishpond using hook and line.

The catch was then used in a cookfest participated in by all NIFTDC employees to highlight the different culinary delights that can be made using seabass.

Dr. Westly Rosario, NIFTDC chief, led the activities intended to showcase the big potentials of seabass as an additional fish food for Filipinos, like the popular milkfish and tilapia.

“We are looking at seabass as another industry in Pangasinan and in other coastal areas of the country,” Rosario said.

The NIFTDC last year scored a breakthrough in breeding seabass in captivity, initially producing half a million fry, all of which will be distributed to fish farmers who want to culture the fish.

Few fish farmers are raising seabass mainly because they do not know where to source fingerlings, according to Rosario.

Rosario acknowledged that a kilo of seabass currently costs P250 in the market, more than double the price of milkfish at an average P110 per kilo, but noted that the former is a better source of protein.

He also said seabass can be raised in brackish and fresh water, unlike other species such as siganid (Malaga), which die when the fishpond gets mixed with floodwater.

At present, most of the fingerlings used in big farms are imported from Thailand and Indonesia, making seabass more expensive in the local market.

The NIFTDC is now only one of the two hatcheries in the country producing seabass fry. The other is a privately-owned facility in General Santos City.

Rosario said farmers can inter-crop seabass with native tilapia.

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