Milkfish Production and Processing ... - WorldFish Center

who developed the modular system of milkfish
culture. Mr. Maximo Abesamis was the first
to import to the Philippines circular cages
with plastic frames from Norway, the very
same type the Norwegians use for salmon.
Mr. Abesamis was able to demonstrate that one
can safely moor such cages in fairly deep waters
(1 to 15 m) far from the shore in the waters
of Pangasinan.
2.5 Milkfish Processing
BFAR also started to develop various methods
to process milkfish to make milkfish acceptable
to more people many of whom are averse to
the numerous inter-muscular spines. Two product
forms are specifically addressed towards
mitigating the effects of the spine: the “soft-boned
bangus” and the “boneless bangus.” The first is
achieved by pressure cooking pre-seasoned
milkfish until the bones become soft. The second
involves the process of deboning. It is the latter
which proved more popular and now comes in
various variations such as smoked, marinated,
bangus belly, etc. The trimmings produced in the
process of deboning also led to the development
of many other products such as fishball,
quekiam, lumpia, etc.
2.6 Seed Production
The BFAR early on recognized that the industry
cannot develop further as long as it is totally
dependent on natural supply of fry. As early as
1968, the Bureau established a hatchery project
in Naujan, Mindoro to propagate milkfish among
other species. The site was selected due to the
easy availability of potential milkfish broodstock
as they migrate to the sea to spawn after
having grown to mature sizes in Lake Naujan.
The project was hampered from the start from
lack of funding. It also appeared to have failed
to develop a focused strategy. Its first report
after one year mentions attempts to also breed
mullet and prawns in addition to milkfish.
Serious work on milkfish breeding in the
Philippines started only after the establishment
of SEAFDEC AQD (Southeast Asian Fisheries
Development Center Aquaculture Department)
in 1974. With a US$1.7 Million grant from
the International Development and Research
Center (IDRC) of Canada, SEAFDEC AQD
formulated a short-term and a medium-term
approach to solving the problem. The short-
Milkfish Production and Processing Technologies in the Philippines
term approach involved the use of wild-caught
sabalo (adult milkfish) and inducing them to
spawn in captivity. For the medium to long
term approach, pond-reared milkfish from the
AQD brackishwater station in Leganes were
transferred to and reared further in circular sea
cages in the oceanic waters of Igang, Guimaras
Island since information on their biology indicated
spawning in marine waters. SEAFDEC
AQD assembled an international team consisting
of experts on fish reproduction from Canada,
India, Japan and Taiwan to work side by side
with Filipino scientists and technicians.
The use of wild-caught broodstock proved to
be a dead-end approach and was not continued
once the captive milkfish stock reached sexual
maturity. However, it enabled the SEAFDEC
AQD Milkfish Team to have a head start of at
least 4 years in tackling the problem of larval
rearing and fry production even as the captive
broodstock was still growing in cages. By 1979,
several technical papers on the broodstock
development, spawning, and larval rearing of
milkfish came out of the work in SEAFDEC
AQD (Liao et al, 1979; Lacanilao, 1979; Juario,
1979; Rodriguez, 1979). It was in 1980 that
maturation and natural spawning of the captive
broodstock in SEAFDEC AQD floating sea
cages in Igang took place. The same year, Taiwan
first reported on induced spawning of pondreared
milkfish.
The knowledge that milkfish can achieve sexual
maturity and spawn naturally in captivity led
to the establishment of the National Bangus
Breeding Program (NBBP) by BFAR and SEAFDEC
AQD in 1981 which aimed to jumpstart the
mass production of milkfish fry by BFAR and demonstrate
its technical and commercial viability.
By 1986, four of the 1 NBBP sites reported
maturation and spontaneous spawning. But due
to funding problem, the hatchery component
was never adequately pursued. The various
BFAR regions could not even sustain the feeding
of the sexually mature milkfish in their care.
Typhoons took its toll on some of the cages
and many of the valuable broodstock escaped.
The project died a natural death with the
remaining milkfish broodstock eventually sold
to the interested parties for possible use in
hatcheries in 1995. For a very long time it
was only SEAFDEC AQD that was operating a
milkfish hatchery in the Philippines.
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