LANDLOCKED TOWNS, PROVINCES
NEXT TARGET FOR FISH MARKETS
By Manny Piñol
Following the successful launching of the Bohol Fish Market this week, towns and provinces which do not have fishing grounds like Baguio City, Bukidnon, Abra, Tarlac and North Cotabato will be the next destination of the Department of Agriculture’s TienDA Fish Market program to ensure stable supply and bring down the price of fish.
On Thursday, Aug. 16, the DA and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources opened the Bohol Fish Market in the Agriculture Promotions Center in Tagbilaran City in response to complaints of the island-province’s residents of unreasonably high prices of fish in the markets.
A validation made by a study team of the DA-BFAR showed that traders and middlemen controlled the trading of fish, including other agricultural products in the province, resulting in prices of the common table fish Galunggong soaring to as high as P220 per kilo.
The Bohol Fish Market was then planned and launched with the following features:
1. It will be stakeholders owned and operated with wives and daughters of fishermen and fish vendors groups operating the facility.
The stakeholders were trained in Financial Literacy by the SM Foundation and the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and given loans of P50,000 each for a total loaned amount of P5-M provided by the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) through a local conduit bank.
The loan will have an interest of 6% per year without collaterals.
2. They were linked up with fishermen’s groups from other regions, especially Zamboanga Peninsula, who supplied the fish sold at prices greatly lower than the current market price in Bohol.
“Matambaka,” for example was sold at P158 per kilo while in the public markets of the province it was sold at P280 per kilo.
3. Initially, the Bohol Fish Market will be open only during Saturdays and Sundays because of the absence of storage facilities.
However, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) under Secretary Art Tugade has committed to turn over to the DA about 200 units of refrigerated containers, four of which will be sent to Bohol, to serve as the storage facilities for fish coming in from the other provinces, including those caught by local fishermen.
4. The Bohol Fish Market will then become the fish trading hub for the island.
It will later be transformed into a tourism destination with the transfer of the market to the fish port area in Baclayon town which DA owns.
When that happens, restaurants and eateries will be established to be operated by the stakeholders copying the “Dampa” Market on Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City where tourists could buy fish and then have these cooked and prepared for them in the restaurants and eateries.
The next Fish Market to be launched after Bohol will be in Baguio City where the DA has a facility within the Benguet State University compound, the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center.
This program will be replicated nationwide to ensure stable supply of fish at affordable prices and to address the problem caused by the control by traders and middlemen of the food supply chain.
(Photos of the launching of the Bohol Fish Market with Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco, Jr. and Bohol Governor Edgar Chatto taken by Alan Jay Jacalan and COS Bong Piñol.)
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