Fish Cage Farming! Fil-Am U.S. Navy Veterans Eye Investments in Fish Production

In my recent trip to California, a group of retired officers of the United States Navy of Filipino ancestry asked me what investment opportunities are open to them so they could help in the country’s economic recovery.

Being familiar with the investment opportunities in the country, especially in Mindanao, I enumerated to them the following fields of interest:

1. Sorghum Contract Growing to support the grains requirements of the local feeds industry and open a Cattle Fattening project;

2. Operation of Mariculture Parks, especially in the Bangsamoro Region, which would include the operation of an aqua feed mill, fish hatcheries, fish cages and fish processing facilities.

3. Establishment of Bamboo Processing Facilities to produce engineered bamboo for export and Industrial Tree Processing facilities;

4. Establishment of High Value Fruits Plantations, especially in the highlands of Mindanao, like Hass Avocado for the local and export market.

Of the four possible investment areas, the group, led by Samson Mante, who traces his ancestry to Bohol, expressed keen interest on Bangus Fish Cage Farming because of the demand for Philippine Milkfish among Filipino expatriates in the United States.

I have relayed this information to the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the agency which I formerly headed, and at 2 p.m. today (10 p.m. Wednesday in California), there will be a Zoom Meeting involving the U.S. group and MinDA technical staff.

I have recommended the Bangsamoro Area of Parang, Maguindanao as the ideal site of the first Mariculture Park due to its proximity to the Polloc Port which had been declared by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the local government unit of Parang as an investment area.

The U.S. Group has tapped the expertise of farmer-scientist Rocky French, himself an American citizen of Filipino ancestry, in establishing an Aqua Feed Mill, Hatcheries, Fish Cages and Processing Facilities.

In the project blueprint which I had prepared, the U.S. Group and the Philippine Partners will allow local fisherfolk families to own and operate the fish cages while they supply the fingerlings and feeds with an agreement that the fish production would be bought and processed by the group.

I will also propose to the group the establishment of a Sorghum Contract Growing Program to help address the grains requirements of the local feedmill industry.

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