Cordillera fish production drops
PHILIPPINE Statistics Authority (PSA) studies show fish production in the Cordillera Administrative Region’s declined by 1.3 percent from 4,201.2 metric tons (MT) in 2016 down to 4,148 MT last year.
In a PSA report, the drop in fish production is due to the decrease in municipal inland production which is down by 7.1 percent with the Mountain Province contributing the least with an output of 18.3 metric tons or 0.4 percent last year.
The PSA report showed out of the 4,148 MT regional production, 2,996.9 MT (72.2 percent) came from
aquaculture and 1,151.1 MT (27.8 percent) came from inland fishery production where Ifugao was a top producer with 4,425 MT comprising 58.5 percent of the total regional production.
Inland fishing is native fishing done in lakes, rivers and dams, not requiring the use of boats but utilizing simple gear and nonmotorized fishing boat with a capacity of less than three tons.
The region’s inland fishing output in 2016 was 1,151.1 MT, with Ifugao topping with 333.2 MT [28.9 percent of the total inland fishery] of fish harvested.
Abra and Kalinga trailed Ifugao with a share of 26.4 percent and 21.3 percent, respectively and Apayao coming in at fourth spot with a 13.5 percent share in the region’s inland fishery production.
Benguet and Mountain Province had the least shares with 9.2 and 0.6 percent in inland production, respectively. Aquaculture is fishery production involving the raising and culturing of fish and other fishery species in fresh, brackish and marine water areas.
In 2017, CAR registered aquaculture production of 2,996.9 MT within 570.9 hectares dominating region’s fisheries accounting for 72.2 percent of the total fish production.
Ifugao recorded as the highest production with 2,091.7 MT comprising a share of 69.8 percent within a harvested area of 257.3 hectares. Abra was a distant second with 357.5 MT with 11.9 percent share in a harvested area of 150.7 hectares.
While, Mountain Province had again the least production with only 11.3 MT harvested in an area of 4.4 hectares comprising only 0.4 percent of the aquaculture fish production region wide.