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HOPE SEEN IN REVIVING THE MORIBOUND PRAWN EXPORT INDUSTRY THROUGH PINOY-DEVELOPED ORGANIC FARMING - BY ABE P. BELENA
The once thriving prawn export industry in the Philippines sees new hope of making a comeback if the success of a technology developed by a team of Filipino scientists and entrepreneurs is adopted to replace the old technology that depended heavily on chemicals.
This was confidently projected by Rod Mata, Vice President for Marketing of the Bio Organic Plus Philippines, Inc., after the successes of its pilot demonstration farms using probiotic treatment in different fishponds in Mindanao and Luzon. Carrying the brand, Aqua Plus, a strain of probiotic bacteria specially bred to rehabilitate fishponds whose yields have gone down due to pests and the heavy use of chemical fertilizer and nutrients, the pioneering Filipino company has found that tiger prawns, once the pride of Filipino prawn growers, thrive well in probiotic treated ponds.
This was proven in demonstration farms the company sponsored un Agusan del Sur including Butuan City, Surigao del Norte, particularly in the town of Magallanes where the prawn pest white spot virus and translucent bacteria have spread.
A chain of fish water fishponds in Macabebe, Pampanga, Mata revealed, is awaiting harvest result. The company's scientists have developed different strains of probiotics belonging to the ones used in yakult drinks, for specific farm, fisherym household and industrial uses.
At its height in the 1980s up to the early 1990s, the prawn industry in the Philippines contributed a sizable share in the export market. Intensive farming that used chemical treatments like urea fertilizer, however, made the native tiger prawn vulnerable to viruses and pests.
Virus and pest infestation, had since pruned the share of prawns as an export aqua-culture product. In search for solutions, some commercial fishpond owners have been priming agriculture and fishery officials to replace the native tiger prawn with a new imported variety of white prawn. -Excerpt from MANILA BULLETIN dated October 20, 2008. page C1.
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