OUT OF 4-B FRY NEEDED

THE country needs four billion bangus fry to meet local and overseas demand but local producers can only manage 600 to 800 million a year.

This was revealed by Alex Soriano, chairman of the Philippine Milkfish Industry Group,

during the Bangus Rodeo event of the Bangus Festival in Dagupan City on April 23 who said that this remains a problem up to now to bangus producers.

He said the difference between four billion and 800 million is what is bought abroad. He said imported bangus fry has a low survival rate.

“The country can’t really produce it yet,” Soriano said. He added that there is also a scarcity of broodstock of bangus.

He said it takes about five to eight years to raise broodstock and there are only few in the country.

There is no exact figure of bangus fry produced in the country because there is no data related to it in the Philippines except in 1994, he said.

He said Feedmix where he works and has a bangus hatchery in Infanta town that targets to produce four million fry a month.

Soriano said the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has its National Bangus Fry Sufficiency Program and 170 to 180 broodstock are under its supervision.

In an earlier interview with Dr. Westly Rosario, BFAR- National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center chief in Dagupan, who was named as the program focal person, said that the National Bangus Fry Sufficiency Program launched in September last year aims to address acute bangus shortage in the country by producing an estimated 1.5 billion to 2 billion fry a year.

He said it is unfortunate that bangus fry used in the Philippines still comes from Indonesia which hosts the biggest production facility in the world and it greatly benefits from this industry but ironically, the Indonesians don’t consider bangus a favorite dish. (PhilStar Wire Service)

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