PANGLIMA SUGALA, TAWI-TAWI—Across Asia, festivals and parties would not be complete without gourmet dishes of fresh seafood, including fish plucked live from tanks and cooked just minutes before serving.
With the regional economy on an upswing, there is a growing demand for sustainable supplies of live, high-quality farmed seafood, including abalone and the different varieties of grouper.
Producers who have efficient means of transporting their live seafood products to buyers stand to benefit more from the current market trend.
Jadi Pandi and his business associates—all of them small-scale fish farmers in this remote group of islands—were determined to maximize their profit margins. This March, they launched their live fish transporter, possibly the first of its kind in the Sulu archipelago.
The transporter, which can carry up to 500 kilos of live fish on a single run, consists of a 45-foot cargo boat equipped with a saltwater holding tank, pump and portable power generator for supplying oxygen to the tank.
On its initial voyage from Panglima Sugala to Bongao the provincial capital, the transporter carried 150 kilos of tiger grouper which, at P500 per kilo, sold for P75,000.
“This is double what we would have made using the old delivery system. We are very happy,” said the normally taciturn Pandi.
Only a decade ago, following the signing of the peace agreement between the government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front, Jadi Pandi and his associates were war-weary MNLF fighters who were looking no further than their families’ day-to-day survival.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, through its Livelihood Enhancement and Peace (LEAP) Program, provided Pandi and his group of ex-combatants, who had grouped themselves into the 50-member Batumanga Seaweed Growers Association, with training and materials to earn a living through seaweed farming.
The emergency livelihood assistance lasted for only two planting cycles. What the recipients did with their new skills after these cycles had ended would be the test of their mettle.
The hardworking Pandi was focused and motivated: soon he was planning for his children’s future schooling and had saved enough to buy small parcels of land.
Once Pandi’s immediate needs were met, his entrepreneurial streak came to the fore after he completed training in fish production under the Targeted Commodity
Enhancement Program (TCEP) of USAID’s Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program.
“This GEM component is for emergency livelihood ‘graduates’
To date, more than 9,500 MNLF former combatants have been trained by TCEP in the production of high-value land crops and aquaculture. Of these, over 7,500 are now selling to more lucrative markets.
In 2004, Pandi and his associates constructed a system of fish pens and cages costing P140,000. They stocked these with 1,500 grouper and mangrove snapper fingerlings from Finfish Hatchery in Sarangani province. The acquisition of the juvenile fish was facilitated by the GEM Program. Later, abalone was added.
Pandi, who has lived all his life in Tawi-Tawi, and who speaks only Tausug, was soon producing live fish destined for high-end restaurants in Manila and Hongkong.
The fish were delivered through boats plying inter-island routes in the Sulu Sea to Bongao port, where they would be bought by traders and airlifted to Zamboanga, then to Manila and beyond.
By December 2005, his cluster was netting more than P300,000 per harvest. He and his colleagues plowed profits back into the business, expanding the fish pens and buying a boat.
In 2007, it occurred to Pandi and the others that they could earn more if they could consolidate their catch on-site and bring it directly to traders in Bongao.
Pandi proposed the idea of the transporter to the GEM Program. “A boat with a large fish tank built into it would help in consolidating the catch from the different growers and delivering it more quickly to buyers,” said Pandi.
He pointed out that many fish died en route to exporters, due to the current practice of transferring them from one cargo boat to another in small containers with no oxygen supply. With the transporter, fish mortality would be almost completely eliminated. The cargo would arrive in a healthier state and live longer.
In partnership with GEM, the tanks and equipment were provided by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The TCEP team provided training on the post-harvest handling and conditioning of marketable fish, and on the operation and maintenance of the tanks and equipment. As their counterpart contribution, MNLF community provided a new diesel engine and the boat.
“Since 1997, Jadi Pandi and others like him have grown from emergency assistance beneficiaries to skilled entrepreneurs and partners,” says Hector Palma, a TCEP fishery specialist.
“GEM provided strategic assistance at critical stages, but it was their hard work which made life better for their families and their community,” Palma added.
Eventually, the transporter will be used to transfer fingerlings from a commercial multi-species hatchery soon to begin operations in Tawi-Tawi.
The hatchery is a joint project of the provincial government, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center, Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, Western Mindanao Community Initiatives Project, and the GEM Program.
Pandi and the other fish farmers are now planning to expand and set up more fish pens. “The opportunity to earn is there,” he said. “We intend to make the most of it.” GEM Program
