QUEZON CITY—A 93-hectare unproductive fishpond in Magsaysay is now providing livelihood for poor fishpond farmers in the Occidental Mindoro municipality.

The Department of Agriculture (DA), though its Community-based Participatory Action Research (CPAR) fisheries project, helped transform the fishpond where milkfish or bangus and mudcrab or talangka are now being raised.

The fund is being managed by the Santacati Small Fishpond Farmers Multi-purpose Cooperative (SSFMPC).

Roberto R. Abrera, RFRDC manager and the project leader Regional Fisheries Research and Development Center (RFRDC)

Occidental Mindoro has around 6,000 hectares of brackish water fishponds, of which around 2,000 are privately-owned and 4,000 are leased out by the provincial government, said Roberto R. Abrera, project leader and manager of the Regional Fisheries Research and Development Center (RFRDC).

In Magsaysay alone, there are over 2,000 hectares of fishponds, making it an ideal CPAR site.

The town is also suited for mudcrab culture due to its lush mangrove cover and still abundant population of king crabs which are of high-value.

Magsaysay is also noted as a major bangus fry collection ground where fries are caught from the wild during hatching season.

The town will also serve as the model farm to other fishpond operators in the area.

The CPAR project titled, “Culture of Milkfish in Brackishwater Ponds and Pen Culture of Mudcrab in Mangroves”, is funded by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR).

The project introduced specific technologies designed to increase production of milkfish and mudcrabs.

At the same time, it equipped fishpond farmers with the technical know-how on aquaculture management in order to increase and sustain their incomes.

The project is being implemented by the RFRDC of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources-Region 4B in collaboration with the local government of Magsaysay.