Central Mindanao folk go ga-ga over African catfish

COTABATO CITY – If Central Mindanao’s fisherfolk cannot go out to fish in the sea due to bad weather, farmers raising African hito (catfish) right in their backyards rejoice.

For about six months now, there has been an abundant supply of African hito in the markets, fattened by farmers using commercial feeds.

The African hito is three times bigger than the native catfish and is much tastier that Central Mindanao’s endemic species. In many parts of this city, it is sold live, kept by vendors in aquariums displayed along busy thoroughfares.

A random survey by The STAR showed that local vendors sell a total of about 200 kilos of cultured African hito everyday, mostly supplied by farmers from the nearby provinces of North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat and from the South Cotabato-Sarangani-General Santos City (Socsargen) area.

Among those who pioneered the thriving catfish business here is the family of a retired physician known for his advocacy for low fat, low cholesterol and low sodium diet for adults and children to ensure good health.

More than a dozen restaurants here and in nearby towns now specialize in different recipes of African hito, among them "crispy breaded catfish" and the kare-kare, cooked in coconut milk with curry and red, hot native peppers.

"My weekend is not complete without feasting on a dishful of crispy, fried African hito," a 34-year-old Chinese businessman here told The STAR.

The number of African hito growers in many parts of Central Mindanao has increased five-fold in recent months, according to local officials.

The biggest inland fishponds stocked with the foreign catfish variety can be found in Sultan Kudarat province and in villages surrounding Lake Buluan at the border of Buluan, Maguindanao and Lutayan, Sultan Kudarat.

Conservationists, however, are worried that African hito could "infest" marshes in the region, including the 200,000-hectare Liguasan delta, now regarded as the "last frontier" of the country’s endemic freshwater fishes.

Sources from the Department of Agriculture in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said the African hito, if left in the wild, can grow up to about five kilos, and will be a formidable predator of smaller fish in marshes and the legendary Rio Grande de Mindanao which traverses Bukidnon, North Cotabato and Maguindanao.

Some native fishes in the region’s marshes and in Lake Lanao in Lanao del Sur, have reportedly become extinct as a result of the introduction, in the late 1970s, of foreign, fast growing species such as the Bagong Lipunan, a fast-growing, carp-like fish preying on smaller native fish and shrimps.