The national president of the Philippine Association of Fish Producers (PAFP) has called on the government to investigate costly commercial feeds being sold on the market whose ingredients were believed to be imitations of those listed on their labels.

Eduardo Maramba, PAFP president, recently brought this matter to the attention of vice presidential candidate Senator Peter Allan Cayetano when he held a dialogue with fish farmers and their families.

Maramba, a fishpond owner in Dagupan City, said that seven years ago, they used to harvest milkfish 90 days or three months after stocking, but now they have to wait around 150 days before their fish reaches marketable sizes.
This means that the feeds being used by fish farmers are not effective as the fish are not growing.

He stopped short of naming the country where the alleged fake fish feeds originate from but revealed it is where so-called fake rice and fake micro-chips are also originating.

“If they can produce fake rice, why not fish feeds,” Maramba asked.
The emergence of fake fish feeds in the market that are sold at exorbitant prices is one of the reasons that the aquaculture industry is not currently in a healthy state.

He believes that this problem has arisen because the government agency tasked to monitor firms engaged in feed milling do not protect the end-users.
Fish farmers spend around 90 percent of their production cost on fish feeds, and the price has trebled in the past seven years.

At the same time, the price of milkfish remains low ,because the country has a 200,000 metric ton surplus, according to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

Source: PNA/northboundasia.com. Read the full article here.