Dagupan conducts bangus census

DAGUPAN CITY – As the National Statistics Office (NSO) conducts the national population census throughout the country, the agriculture office here is set to conduct its own census of bangus or milkfish produced in this city, which lays claim to being the world’s milkfish capital.

Emma Molina, city agriculturist, told The STAR that she had started formulating a scientific survey of bangus which will be approved by Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr. to get the exact volume of fish grown in fishponds and fishpens here.

The bangus census will take more than three months and will include interviews with local consignacion or the group of 47 big-time fish dealers.

Molina said about 38 dealers are exclusively selling bangus while the others sell different kinds of fish and seafood.

She said they will have to validate if the 38 members of the consignacion sell only certified pure Dagupan bangus or mixed species grown in Alaminos City, Bolinao, Anda and Bani in Western Pangasinan.

Molina said field workers will also go around to interview bangus growers in fishponds and fishpens.

There are more than 900 fishpens and more than 900 fishponds that produce bangus in the city.

Molina said scientific data about bangus production here were last collected in 2004, but these have to be updated especially with the $2 million grant from the South Korean government for a local seafood processing plant, the bulk of production of which will be bangus.

In the 2004 data, it was indicated that 31 metric tons per day of bangus were sold in the local market here, including fish from nearby towns.

Molina said there are reports that the milkfish production is about 14 metric tons daily in Dagupan.

She said the bangus census will complement the effort of the city government for the labeling of milkfish so people can easily distinguish if the fish was grown in the city or not.

The label will be placed at the tail of the bangus, similar to the tags on chickens.

“While this planned labeling of bangus will be an added cost to the producers, it will give them more benefits in the long run because that way they will have a built-in advantage in the market because Dagupan bangus has become a byword among fish lovers,” Molina said.

It can be recalled that the administration of former mayor Benjamin Lim initiated a Bangus Festival during summer that earned for the city a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest bangus grill.

Meanwhile, a group of bangus dealers in Dagupan urged the city government to ban the sail in local markets of  “alien” milkfish harvested from Laguna de Bay and other provinces that have inferior quality and undermine the quality of the world-famous Dagupan bangus.

Julie Ann Perez, president of Malimgas Aliguas Dagupan Vendors Federation, told The STAR yesterday that alien bangus are cheaper and sold at prices ranging from P40 to P45 per kilogram compared to the genuine Dagupan bangus that are sold for P70 a kilo.

Perez said the alien bangus that mostly comes from Laguna de Bay taste and smell like mud.

She said that for the past three months, their sales have dropped because the markets were saturated with fish from other provinces with at least six jeep loads of alien bangus delivered everyday in  local markets.