News Updates : IS YOUR PRAWN FARM MARGINALIZED? TRY GOING ORGANIC

IS YOUR PRAWN FARM MARGINALIZED? TRY GOING ORGANIC
by: ABE P. BELENA

Marginalized prawn farmers in the town of Magallanes, Surigao del Norte got a shot in the arm after shifting to organic fishpond management following repeated attacks by deadly pests identified as translucent bacteria and white spot virus.

Two demonstration prawn farms of the Baug CARP Beneficiaries Cooperative yielded an average of 1.2 tons (1,200 kilos) of matured tiger prawns a hectare and sold at farm-gate prices of P280 per kilo.

These were harvested in the second week of September with the use of probiotics in addition to the usual pond feeds, doing away with the chemical treatments and costly fertilized like urea.

When the deadly pests invaded the Surigao prawn farms, harvests plunged from two and a half tons per hectare to a measly 100 to 300 kilos despite the application of lime to correct the acidity of the ponds and the urea to fertilize these, said Jimmy Viray, one of the farmers who volunteered his three-hectare fishpond for demonstration purposes.

They used to apply limestone powder and urea fertilizer in those farms to save the afflicted young tiger prawns from dying. But these have stopped being effective. Most of them had to prematurely harvest after only six weeks when the pests took hold.

In dire need for the remedy, Viray gambled on a new organic product called Aqua Plus, a strain of probiotic bacteria that was only beginning to be commercially distributed by Bio Organic Plus Philippines, Inc., an all Filipino company based in Cainta, Rizal. Viray volunteered his farm to demonstrate the efficacy of using Aqua Plus. The farm was sprayed with Aqua Plus without applying any fertilizer of chemical treatment.

Harvest showed a 100 percent survival rate for the 40,000 prawn fries seeded in a two-hectare fishpond.

Each hectare yielded 1.2 tons (1,200 kgs.) for the first time since 2002 when the pests first invaded fishponds in Agusan, although the yield was not yet as large as harvests before the deadly viruses marginalized prawn farmers in Magallanes town. But it brought the Viray farm bact to profitability. Viray sold at farmgate price of P280 per kilo his fully grown tiger prawns with an average of 30 to 35 grams per piece. With the application of probiotics, he has made a big leap from chemically-dependent prawn growing to organic farming.

Technicians of the manufacturer had made it a policy that in each organically treated farm, chemical fertilizers, disinfectants or pesticides are not to be used together with the probiotics. Those poisons kill the good bacteria used in coaxing the soil or pond water back to health, Rod Mata, Bio Organic Plus vice president for Marketing, said.

Witnessing the recovery of Viray farm, a neighboring cooperative in Magallanes has ordered over 3,000 liters of the liquid natural treating formula for use in the September-October seeding season. -Excerpted from THE PHILIPPINE STAR - BUSINESS - AGRICULTURE / ENVIRONMENT. October 05, 2008.B4.