Successful Dagupan culture gives hope to shrimp growers

DAGUPAN CITY — Once controversial, the Pacific white shrimp or Peneaus vannamei is giving hope to revive the country’s moribund shrimp industry.

Inspired by the success of the experimental breeding of P. vannamei at the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) center in Bonuan Binloc this city, shrimp growers in the Visayas and Mindanao now want to adopt the technology to revitalize the shrimp industry.

Dr. Westly Rosario, executive director of the National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center and concurrent BFAR center chief here, told The STAR that the shrimp growers signified their growing interest in P. vannamei during their recent congress in Bacolod City.

"Dati ayaw nila, ngayon nag-aapura na sila para makapag-culture na rin ng shrimp species na ito (Before, they did not want it but now they are in a hurry to culture this shrimp species)," Rosario said.

He said prawn growers even intend to pass a resolution urging the government to lift the ban on the culture of this species so they could be given the chance to raise it commercially.

"That’s the beauty of what we did," he said.

Rosario said they had a good harvest from 20 accredited fishfarms of five to seven tons per hectare in 120 days.

He said most fishfarms in the country had been closed for four years since the prawn industry suffered a slump.

Rosario hopes that P. vannamei will be one of the biggest major commodities of the country in the next three years.

After less than two years of their experimental culture of P. vannamei, Rosario proudly reported great strides by the BFAR center, the only one that was allowed to do an experiment on the hatchery of P. vannamei.

He said BFAR showed the integrity of specific pathogen-free strains of P. vannamei breeders that they had imported from Hawaii.

Initially, there had been criticisms about the species due to fears that it might carry diseases, among other issues. This, however, was overcome by observing proper protocol, he said.

Despite initial problems, Rosario said they are now into continuous breeding.

One female breeder can spawn from 100,000 to 300,000 every three days. The cultured prawns can be marketed in 75 days at P330 per kilo, he said.

The species’ feed conversion ratio is less than 1.5, meaning less than 1.5 kilograms of feeds are needed to produce one kilo of shrimps, he said.

The survival rate is at least 50 percent based on the reports of the BFAR-accredited fishfarms but can go as high as 80 percent, he said, adding that the return of investment is 50 percent.

Rosario said they want to make the culture of P. vannamei also available to small prawn growers by giving them the simple technology.

No less than Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., a major financier of various projects of the BFAR center, has encouraged the culture of P. vannamei.

He called it a major breakthrough in the government’s campaign to bring more food on the table of Filipinos.

"Vannamei is the hope to revive the almost dead shrimp industry and make shrimps available to ordinary people," BFAR director Malcolm Sarmiento told reporters during the launch of the shrimp species’ culture here.

While great progress has been made in the culture of tilapia, seaweeds and bangus, Sarmiento said the shrimp industry has lagged behind.

He said the P9-billion shrimp industry had its heyday in the 1980s when farmers cultured tiger prawns. But the sector almost went bankrupt due to a widespread disease caused by a luminous virus.

The government, through a memorandum of agreement with the Agrifisheries World Inc., imported breeders from the Kona Bay Marine Resources in Hawaii that were certified by the University of Arizona as free from nine pathogens (bacteria and viruses).

The University of Arizona is the recognized reference disease diagnostic laboratory of the US shrimp consortium.

There is a strong demand for P. vannmei in Taiwan, Thailand and mainland China.