There’s money in tilapia growing
TILAPIA is now widely distributed around the world. In fact, tilapia has become the mainstay of many small-scale aquaculture projects of poor fish farmers in the developing world. “The fish is cultured in more than 70 countries,” says Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, a national scientist and fishery expert.
Tilapia is the second most important cultured fish in the world, Guerrero said. In the Philippines, some 260,535.67 metric tons were produced from farms in 2012, as records of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics showed. This makes the Philippines as the fifth largest producer of farmed tilapia in the world.
The Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions, in a publication entitled Tilapia Farming in the Philippines: A Success Story, cited three factors which contributed to the phenomenal growth of the tilapia industry. These were: (1) government support for research and extension, (2) the strong linkage between government and industry, and (3) the splendid cooperation between researches and fishfarmers.
“Tilapia farming started in the Philippines in the 1950s with the introduction of the Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) from Thailand,” Guerrero recalled. “But it was only in the 1970s that our tilapia industry took off with the propagation of the Nile tilapia (O. niloticus). This is a much better fish than other tilapias in terms of growth rate and consumer acceptance.”
After bangus (milkfish), tilapia is now the second most important fish in the Philippines. Tilapia fish pens are a common sight in almost all the major rivers and lakes in the country, including Laguna de Bay, Taal Lake, and Lake Sebu. It is very popular among Filipinos who cooked the fish in different ways, including fried, grilled, sinigang (a sour soup using tamarind, santol, guava or calamansi as a base) and paksiw (similar to sinigang only it uses vinegar).
But what’s in a tilapia? Nutritionists claim that 100 grams of tilapia provides approximately 93 calories, with one gram of fat (0.5 grams saturated), 55 milligrams cholesterol, 37 grams sodium, 0.5 milligram iron, 19.5 grams protein, and 90 milligrams Omega-3 fatty acids.
In the Philippines, tilapia is now a major source of animal protein for the country’s growing population. “It is the second most important cultured species, contributing more than 30% of the fish production from aquaculture,” reports the Laguna-based Philippines Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (Pcaarrd).
Tilapia is now a fastgrowing industry with production rising by 12.5% between 2002 and 2010. “In 2010, the Philippines produced 258,667 metric tons of tilapia, making it one of the top five producers in the world,” Pcaarrd said. “This volume goes mainly to the domestic market.”
The per capita consumption of tilapia in the Philippines is estimated to be 3 kilograms per year, which is higher than that of milkfish (2.53 kilograms per year) or round scad (1.61 kilograms per year). “This higher level of consumption may partly be attributed to the relatively lower market price of tilapia compared to milkfish and round scad (popularly known as galunggong) and its wide availability,” Pcaarrd claimed.
Most of the tilapia raised in the Philippines are con- sumed locally. However, there is a growing international market demand for tilapia as a foodfish. In the United States and Europe, tilapia is getting a lot of attention.
“In the United States, tilapia has shown the biggest gains in popularity among seafood, and this trend is expected to continue as consumption is projected to increase,” the Journal of the American Dietetic Associa- tion reported.
Like Americans, Europeans are also fond of tilapia since they consider it as “white meat,” a health food low in cholesterol and fat. Also, European chefs have a preference for tilapia’s firm meat.
But there’s more to tilapia than just providing food. In the United States, tilapias are stocked in the canals that serve as the drinking water sources for the cities of Phoenix, Mesa, and others. The fish reportedly help purify the water by consuming vegetation and detritus, thus greatly reducing purification costs. Tilapia also serves as a natural, biological control for most aquatic plant problems. Tilapia consumes floating aquatic plants, such as duckweed watermeal, the most “undesirable” submerged plants, and most forms of algae.
In Thailand, tilapia is becoming the plant control method of choice in reducing, if not eliminating, the use of toxic chemicals and heavy metal-based algaecides. In Kenya, tilapia helps control malaria-causing mosquitoes. Tilapia consumes mosquito larvae, which reduces the numbers of adult females, the disease’s vector.