DA upbeat on continued growth of fisheries sector

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) remains confident that the fisheries sector will continue to grow this year and maintain its status as the world’s 8th largest fish-exporting country despite the spate of typhoons that battered Luzon in the last four months of 2009. 

The DA is banking on the fisheries sector to be the major contributor of the agriculture sector’s economic growth in the last quarter following the series of typhoons that hit the country and damaged billions of pesos worth of crops and farm infrastructure.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) projects the fisheries sector to post a seven percent increase in output this year.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said “the fisheries industry has been consistently the leading performer in the agriculture sector.”

 “Aside from significantly contributing to the nutritional needs of our people, it has also earned much needed foreign exchange through exports and, in the process, help keeps the economy afloat,” he added. 

According to Yap, the fisheries sector is going to be a prime investment area.  

“We have a coastline longer than the United States, the second longest in the world, with hundreds of storm-protected coves and we also have the necessary technology to increase production,” he pointed out.

For the fisheries sector to sustain its contribution to the national economy, BFAR Director Malcolm Sarmiento Jr. said the bureau must consider two factors in its future development plans - the emerging global trading order and climate change. 

The DA is bullish about next year as 37 percent of the companies investing in the fisheries sector have firmed up expansion plans for 2010 despite the twin onslaught of typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” in Metro Manila and several food-producing areas of Luzon. 

The private sector investors include the Far East Agriculture Corp., which is a consortium of at least 10 agribusiness companies from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; the Brunei Investment Authority led by the Minister of Primary Industries of Brunei; CP Thailand, or Charoen Phokphand, Thailand’s pre-eminent food conglomerate; and Beidahuang, China’s biggest seeds manu-facturer which farms close to a million hectares of wheat in Northern China.

Yap noted that “a recovering global economy and a strong 91 million population as a domestic consumption base, are just too compelling, as realities, to ignore” for investors.

 “If at all, the calamities will help the government, and the private sector plan better for this expansion,” he said.

Yap said another green pasture awaiting private sector capital infusion is the mariculture parks industry.

The mariculture parks, of which 42 so far have been established by the DA, are self contained fishery production zones with hatcheries, technical support, secure areas, feeds production and storage facilities, and marketing assistance for locators.

“It is for this reason that we in the government are increasing investments in aquaculture and mariculture parks in strategic points all over the country. We have self-contained mariculture parks in the country. Self-contained, because we grow our own seedstocks in our own hatcheries, and if you are a locator, we also provide you refrigeration and ice-chilling facilities in the mariculture park,” Yap said.