Study on Bangus Raising free essay sample

Taiwan and Indonesia; although others thought this option was not practical as the fry were very expensive. Enter Finfish Hatcheries, Inc. FHI), which selling bangus fry and fingerlings, among others. â€Å"We have  been in the bangus fry production business since 1997,† says Rene B. Bocaya, FHI’s national marketing manager. According to Bocaya, the price per piece of wild bangus fry was P1. 00 a decade or so ago. â€Å"With the introduction to the market of hatchery produced fry (local and imported), the price now ranges from thirty to forty-five centavos per piece only. The hatchery-produced fry doesn’t only give very big savings to the fishpond operators, but it also provides them good quality and steady supply throughout the year. As a result of steady supply of bangus in the market, there are now processing plants for bangus value-added products. The foreign exchange earnings from bangus exports has been reported to be about US million. In Sarangani Province, where the FHI’s hatchery is located, bangus production has increased considerably. Actually, the hatchery is in Lun Masla, Malapatan. Here, about 13,000 breeders are maintained and managed to produce bangus eggs on a daily basis throughout the year. The eggs are collected, cleaned and hatched. The hatchlings are grown to the marketable sizes in 18-21 days in larval ponds. During the growing period, they are fed with a mixture of planktons and commercial feeds. The breeders are 50% males and 50% females. â€Å"It is tedious to sex the fish individually and tag them,† Bocaya explains. â€Å"We have some breeders that are more than 25 years old and are still breeding in groups well. † It takes 5 years for a bangus to mature sexually. FHI selects breeders for commercial production only when they are 8 years old. The female mature breeder, called  sabalo,  can produce seven kilos of eggs in one year. And one kilo consists of 750,000 eggs. Bangus spawns in ponds in frenzy at night. The  sabalo  release the eggs while the males discharge the milt. Fertilization happens externally in the pond water. There is no need for hormone induction for mature breeders. The eggs are collected in nets in the early morning. They are cleaned and placed in the larval ponds immediately. â€Å"The bangus eggs hatch in the ponds within 24 hours,† Bocaya informs. The hatchlings feed on the yolk sac for about 2-3 days. They undergo morphological transformations. As first feeds, the larva are supplied natural food in a mixture of zoo- and phyto-planktons. Commercial feeds are provided in the last quarter of the production. † Bangus is grown in a number of stages and in varying degrees of culture intensity depending on the grower’s production design and the nature of the growing environment. The simplest bangus value chain is the three-stage system of a nursery stage, a transition stage and a grow-out stage.In the nursery, bangus is grown from fry (kawag-kawag) to fingerling (hatirin). In the transition stage, the fingerlings are grown to juvenile (garungan). In the grow-out stage the juveniles are grown to marketable sizes. In the grow-out stage, bangus is produced in a number of categories depending on the pond structure the capitalization and the grower’s production design. Traditional extensive ponds using  lablab  as feeds normally seed 2,000 juveniles of 50 grams in size. Lablab  production is takes 6 weeks. A well-prepared  lablab  pond can produce 500 kilograms of fish biomass. With 2,000 juveniles stocked, the grower is able to produce 300-gram fish in three to four months from seeding. Bangus grown in marine cage systems. In intensive ponds with aeration, growers can produce 8,000-10,000 kilograms of bangus fish in a hectare. Stocking density to grow 500-gram fish is about 20,000 juveniles per hectare. In fish pens in Laguna Lake, juveniles of 30 to 50 grams are stocked at 50,000 per hectare. There is no feeding needed as the lake provides the algae that the bangus feed on. In marine sea cages, juveniles of 30 to 50 grams are stocked at a rate of 20-50 per square meter depending on the site and the business plan of the grower. Harvest can reach up to 30-40 kilograms per cubic meter of 500-gram bangus in six to eight months. According to Bocaya, at least 50 percent of the costs in intensive pond systems goes to feeds. The other costs that figure are electricity, water, labor and pond maintenance costs. In marine cage systems, feeds are 80 percent of the costs. In extensive systems,  lablab  production is still 40 percent of the costs. On the average, gross profits are at about 25 to 30 percent of selling price on a good year across all production systems,† Bocaya points out. No wonder,  sales of hatchery-bred fingerlings are increasing. When they were new, the fish operators and growers were skeptical about using the hatchery-bred fingerlings. They thought that those caught from the wild were more hardy. However, the perceptions of bangus farmers have changed, Bocaya said. They now prefer the hatchery-bred fingerlings because they are more uniform and they also grow faster.Those from the wild usually have a survival rate of 50 to 60 percent while those from the hatchery usually have 82 to 85 percent survival rate. FHI now sells  hatchery-bred fingerlings  all over the country. It delivers only when the minimum volume of order is 500,000 pieces. â€Å"Generally, the buyers pick-up the fry from our sales offices,† Bocaya says. Buyers can buy fingerlings from their main sales office at 2286 Alsons Building, Pasong Tamo Extension in Makati City. They have offices also in Bacolod City, Iloilo City, and Alabel, Sarangani Province.