Ifugao-based farmer leads way in organic aquaculture

MANILA, Philippines – While most stories start with an insight. There are those that start with a question. People who ask the right question at the right time and through proper channel, know that this is the best way to gain deeper insight. Hence, the story of Villafuerte Camat Jr., a farmer from Lamut, Ifugao and owner of the Camat Farm. 

With the high cost of farm inputs, Camat had been wanting to go into organic farming. But he didn’t know how to go about it. His land area, around 1.5 hectares, had been operating as an integrated conventional farm and was mostly allotted for the production of  rice, tilapia, swine, and vegetables.

It was from here that he started asking people from the agriculture office. Camat sought the assistance of Arthur Fontanilla, an agricultural technician at Lamut Municipal Agriculture Office, who was then involved in the implementation of a Community-based Participatory Action Research (CPAR) project on fishpond production in Lamut, Ifugao. Specifically, the CPAR project was being implemented in Brgys. Hapid and Sanafe, where most farmers are earning meager income from fishing. 

Tilapia production in Lamut started growing when the Hapid irrigation project became operational in 2000 allowing the proliferation of tilapia production. Idle lands and rice fields have been converted into fishponds. But with the increase of inputs for fishpond production, many fisherfolk have been encountering problems, one of which is the decline of income. 

“Though they have a lot of potential areas for fish production, they produce not as much as they want to because of the limited funds to buy inputs for fish production.  They also have limited trainings to engage in this endeavor as they are not yet organized. So there is a need to institutionalize them,” said Catherine Buenaventura, supervising agriculturist, Provincial Agriculture Environment and Natural Resources Office (PAENRO). 

Buenaventura, also a CPAR project leader, said the CPAR project’s main goals were to promote the adoption of improved technology on tilapia production to fisherfolk using the farmer’s field school (FFS) approach, and to promote fish processing and packaging technologies to add value to fishery products, thereby increasing their profit. 

Among the interventions introduced in the project include the establishment of tilapia fishpond production demonstration sites wherein each fisher-cooperator where provided at least 400 square meters of their fishpond areas for their on-farm trials. 

“The provincial and municipal CPAR team facilitated the establishment of beneficiaries’ production ponds through FFS method and there were special topics discussed during these sessions. Problems identified were discussed and were given solutions outright,” Buenaventura said. 

To strengthen the capabilities of fish farming communities in managing their resources, trainings on the construction and management for tilapia, seine net and scoop net design, post-harvest, data gathering and record keeping, and organic fish feed formulation were provided with the assistance of the  Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the  Regional Fisheries Training Center of Aparri, Cagayan.

From the seminars he attended, Camat got hands-on training on integrated organic production which he applied in his own farm. He modified some of the technologies he learned from the training and customized according to the needs of his production. 

Camat was able to develop his own feed formulation for his swine, chicken, and fish and is now producing his own fertilizer using Azolla in combination with the manure for organic swine.

“I started going into organic culture of tilapia in 2012.  We source our fingerlings from the Central Luzon State University or at a nearby provincial fish hatchery. I formulate my own feeds out of the available forages in the farm like rice bran. Copra and soya are added to the forages and fermented them for 21 days,” explained Camat. 

His tilapia harvests are often sold as fresh and the smaller sizes which is about 35 percent of the stocks are being processed as smoked and dried tilapia. One of his recent venture is the tilanggit also known as tilapiang dinanggit (Oreochromis niloticus). 

One of the distinct characteristics of tilanggit over the conventional danggit is that the former is meatier and mostly preferred by customers for its taste. The production of tilanggit did not only provide value addition to tilapia, but it also opened opportunities for livelihood and additional income to fisherfolk in the area. 

Products from tilapia, both fresh and processed, are being sold at the local market in Lamut. Many of Camat’s buyers usually go to his farm to buy his produce.