BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) stated that the fish production of the region increased by 12.3 percent from 2,154 metric tons in the first semester of 2017 to 2,419.2 metric tons during the same period last year contributed mainly by aquaculture.
Except for Kalinga and Mountain Province, the PSA-CAR noted that aquaculture fish production in most of the provinces registered a positive performance.
Of the total regional fish production, the PSA-CAR stipulated that 1,833.1 metric tons or 75.8 percent came from the aquaculture sector and 586.1 metric tons or 24.2 percent came from inland fishery production.
For the first semester last year, Ifugao was consistently the top fish producer with 1,425 metric tons accounting for 58.9 percent of the total regional fish production while Abra came second with 13.8 percent share, followed by Benguet with 11.1 percent share, Kalinga with 9.2 percent share and Apayao with 6.7 percent share and Mountain Province contributed the smallest share with an output of 7.1 metric tons comprising 0.3. Percent.
The PSA-Car explained that inland municipal fishing refers to fishing in inland waters like lakes, rivers, and dams using simple gears and fishing boats some of which are non-motorized with a capacity of less than 3 gross tons or fishing not requiring the use of fishing boats.
The report revealed that the region’s municipal inland fishing output during the first semester last year was 586.1 metric tons comprising 24.2 percent of the total fish production in the region.
Kalinga and Abra were the top inland fishing provinces with 140.8 metric tons and 140.5 metric tons of fish harvested comprising 24.08 percent of the total inland fishery production of the region followed by Apayao with 20.4 percent share while Ifugao came fourth with 19.8 percent share while the provinces with the smallest shares were Benguet and Mountain Province with 11.5 percent and 0.3 percent shares, respectively.
On the other hand, aquaculture production is a fishery operation involving all forms of raising and culturing of fish and other fishery species in fresh, brackish and marine water areas
In the first semester last year, the PSA-Car reported that the region registered an aquaculture production of 1,833.1 metric tons with an estimated area harvested of 290.6 hectares and aquaculture dominated the region’s fisheries accounting for 75.8 percent of the total fish production.
Ifugao posted the highest fish production with 1,309 metric tons from an area harvested of 152.4 hectares followed by Benguet with 201.8 metric tons with an area harvested of 20.1 hectares while Mountain Province had the least fish production in the region with only 5.5 metric tons in an area harvested of 1.9 hectares.
In terms of percentage distribution in aquaculture production in the region, Ifugao contributed 71.4 percent, Benguet came second with 11 percent share while the other provinces and their share to total aquaculture production were Abra with 10.5 percent, Kalinga with 4.4 percent and Apayao with 2.3 percent and Mountain Province continued to have the smallest share with 0.3 percent. By Dexter A. See
