Beyond Bangus and Tilapia: Future Directions of Philippine Aquaculture

Despite incremental growth in basic fish production, Philippine aquaculture continues to lag behind our ASEAN neighbours. After decades of involvement in aquaculture, we now realize that Philippine R & D efforts have benefited those countries that have the political, fiscal structures, and physical infrastructures to scale up, mass produce, and process for export. Our successes have not been in larger scale but in local niches. We see success stories in the production of all male tilapia through sex reversal by hormone and by using supermale or YY-males, sea cage farming of milkfish and pompano, grouper breeding, crab hatchery and development of saline-tolerant strains of tilapia. Looking forward, rather than developing new species and refining existing technology in hatchery and aquaculture feeds, we see research in climate adaptation, disease control, micro-algae production and extraction, developing of single cell proteins as fish meal substitute, electronic monitoring, and data gathering systems as frontiers we can pursue.

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