Fish farmers in Pangasinan, particularly in Dagupan, were asked to diversify their products to boost their traditional harvests of milkfish (bangus) and tilapia.
The call was made by Dr. Westly Rosario, chief of the government-owned National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center (NIFTDC) here, who said there are other high-value species of fish that can be raised in fishponds other than milkfish and tilapia for better profits.
One of them, he said, is seabass which sells at P250 and up per kilo, costlier than milkfish and tilapia.
Found adaptable in brackish waters of Dagupan and Pangasinan, this kind of fish already caught the fancy of many local fish farmers.
However, they are hesitant to raise this kind of fish as they do not know where to source out the fingerlings that they will stock in their fishponds.
Rosario said NIFTDC had been successful in breeding seabass and is now selling fingerlings at the nominal price of P5 per piece.
Although admitting that seabass is carnivorous, Rosario said there is a culture technique where the fish farmers need not feed his fish with the costlier trash fish anymore.
He said the fishpond can be stocked with native tilapia and in one month, this will already lay eggs, at which time the seabass fingerlings must now be released into the farm.
The eggs and offspring of the native tilapia will serve as food of the seabass till they grow to marketable sizes.
Shrimp, Rosario said is also with about the same marketing potential as seabass.
He added that raising shrimps of the vannamae specie, also called white shrimp, is more lucrative than growing tilapia.
Rosario said that there is now a technology where a fish farmer can harvest from six to 10 tons of vannamae even if the pond is just 2,500 square meter area.
Now that almost all shrimp exporting countries are affected by a deadly disease called Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS), it is about time the Philippines will be more serious in raising shrimp called vannamae and aim to go to export too.
At the same time, Rosario urged fish farmers to also embark on oyster and mussel farming as these mollusks are much in demand in the market.