DA acts to make tilapia competitive abroad

Encouraged by the bright prospects of Philippine tilapia in the US and other foreign markets, Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. mobilized the DA, its agriculture attachés and other attached agencies to help small tilapia farmers become competitive in the global market.

Lorenzo–excited by an earlier article on TGA Farms Inc. which would be exporting its frozen whole tilapia and fillets to the US market beginning February–asked Philippine agricultural attachés abroad to serve and promote tilapia in their official social function and in their communities. Tilapia would thus now be promoted side by side with Philippine carabao mangoes by the attachés.

Also, Lorenzo directed Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) president and CEO Nelson C. Buenaflor to design a financial program to support (through working capital) landowners wanting to go into tilapia grow-out operations to boost fish-farm production and rural incomes as well as generate employment in the rural sector.

Upon publication in The STAR on Jan. 16 of the success story of Rene Tayag’s TGA Farms Inc. in Arayat, Pampanga and his interest to get subcontractors in Central Luzon for the expanded grow-out of tilapia for export to the US, Lorenzo immediately called upon the agencies concerned to extend full assistance to the project, which he said would not just bring economic benefits to the provinces TGA operates in but also creates a new image for the Philippines as a stable supplier of high quality value-added tilapia to the world market. The publication has generated tremendous interest from landowners from Central Luzon, Pangasinan, Quezon and as far as the Bicol region.

Director Malcolm Sarmiento Jr., who previously headed the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, which oversees the operations of fish ports and ice plant and cold storages in the country, offered to lease to Tayag a blast freezer that he would need for his processing plant in the Clark Special economic zone. The 20-tonner processing plant will be operated by a newly registered company, TGA Foods Corp.

Tayag went Thursday and Friday to Iloilo and Gen. Santos to personally check the immediate quick freeze (IQF) facilities of PFDA and if such meet his expectations, these would be shipped to the plant in Clark. The memorandum of agreement for the lease of these facilities will immediately follow, Sarmiento said.

Lorenzo’s quick response and excitement in assisting business like TGA’s to succeed in the supply chain is only consistent with his being a successful agribusiness leader himself, having steered two agribusiness giants, Lapanday Foods Corp. and Del Monte to unprecedented heights.