Dagupan bangus growers hold off harvest of fishkill-free stocks

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines—A week after a massive fishkill hit Bolinao and Anda towns in western Pangasinan, bangus (milkfish) growers here and in other parts of the province still hesitate to harvest their stocks from their ponds fearing these will not be sold.

Alejandro Cancino Jr., president of the Dagupan City Bangus Wholesalers’ Association, said bulk buyers from different provinces in Luzon have not returned to the fish market here.

“Maybe, they think that our produce were fishkill-affected. But there was no fishkill in Dagupan City. It was only in Bolinao and Anda,” Cancino said.

Last week, at least 10 truckloads of milkfish from Anda and Bolinao were seized by agriculture, health and police officials here after these were found to be “unfit for human consumption.”

But Emma Molina, city agriculturist, said the shipment of milkfish from fishkill-hit areas in Bolinao and Anda had stopped on Friday.

“We would like to assure our consumers and buyers that what are being sold in the fish market here today are fresh from the ponds and cages,” she said.

Molina said that on a normal day, at least five metric tons of bangus harvested from ponds and cages in Dagupan and in neighboring towns are traded in the city’s fish market, where traders from the Ilocos provinces, Cagayan Valley and Baguio City, and exporters buy in bulk. But on Monday morning, there was almost no milkfish there.

Molina said that in the past, the local bangus industry usually recovers fast after a fishkill or a natural calamity, like floods.

She said the selling price of bangus had normalized on Friday, returning to P100 a kilogram.

But Cancino said it dropped to P65 a kg on Saturday because of the fishkill scare in Batangas. She said a wholesaler even had to sell her bangus on Sunday at P20 a kg so she could dispose of her stock.

She said bangus growers and caretakers of ponds and cages have also been hurting, especially now that classes have begun and they need money for their children’s expenses.

“Nagkaka-utang-utang na nga kami (We are now deep in debt),” Cancino said.

At least 60 percent of bangus supply in Metro Manila comes from Pangasinan, the country’s top bangus producer.