4.1. The Freshwater Fishponds
4.2. Brackishwater Fishponds
4.3. Fishpens
4.4. Cage Culture
4.5. Seaweed Farming
4.6. Mussel and Oyster Farming
4.7. Rice-Fish Farming
There are 14,531 ha freshwater fishponds in the Philippines but the productive area is only 6,522 ha as of 1995 (BFAR, 1997). In 1987 when the total area was only 13,806 ha, 149 ha of this was listed as government owned (BFAR, 1987). Even with the slight increase in the total hectarage, the government-owned area, most likely, would not have changed much. Thus about 99% can be considered privately owned. The freshwater fishponds are concentrated in only one region of the country. Some 68% of the productive area, or 4,427 ha are found in Central Luzon. The rest, or 34%, are distributed in the 12 other regions, with no region having a total area reaching 1,000 ha.
In a 1979 survey covering 396 fishponds in Central Luzon, Reyes et al (1982) found that 70% were 0.50 ha or less while only 2% were over 50 ha. However these percentage is misleading since the average area of the 2 percent over 50 ha is 200 ha. Consequently when the percentages of each size class are computed by area, it turns out that 2% of the fishponds occupies 68% of the total area in the survey sample as shown in Figure 5. Although the study was conducted 16 years ago, the size distribution is not likely to have changed much. Fishponds are exempt from land reform as will be discussed at length in a later section.
4.2.1. Nature of Holdings
In terms of permanent production infrastructure and total contribution to fisheries production there is no doubt that the 239,323 ha of brackishwater fishponds is far ahead of all the other culture systems. Many brackishwater fishponds are large holdings where the owner, in the case of private lands, or the leaseholder, in the case of public lands, do not have direct hand in operating the fishpond relying instead on caretakers who may or may not be on regular salaries. In many cases a privately owned fishpond may also be leased to another party with the owner assured of regular rental fees without any risk.
Many of such large fishponds, even if already titled as private property, are under-developed and under-productive. Such brackishwater fishponds have been around for decades and have not upgraded their production capability. For instance one privately owned fishpond less than 50 km north of Manila, with an area of 300 ha is reported to have a yearly harvest of only 90 mt of milkfish. It appears that in many cases, possession of the land as a resource has become the end rather than merely the means to produce fish.
4.2.2. The FLA System
According to government figures of some 210,467 total brackishwater pond area, 131,471 ha are privately owned. The rest, or 78,969 ha, are government-owned, (BFAR, 1987). Government owned means public lands leased to private parties under a long-term Fishpond Lease Agreement or FLA, or a year-to-year Fishpond Permit (FP), a system which has been in force since 1937 (Fisheries Administrative Order No. 14 in the Commonwealth Government). The duration of each FLA started out at 10 years renewable up to a maximum of 50 years. In a seemingly retrogressive move, the duration was increased to 20 years in 1960 (FAO No.60) and finally to the present 25 years in 1979 (FAO No. 129). The 25-year duration for each lease period and the 50 year maximum was affirmed in the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 (Republic Act 8550).
The maximum area per FLA used to be 200 ha for both individuals and corporations. The maximum area for individuals was decreased to 100 ha in 1954 (FAO 14-4) and finally to 50 ha in 1959 but at the same time the maximum area for corporations was doubled to 400 ha (FAO No. 14-11). It was only in 1998, the maximum area for corporations was reduced to 250 ha with the passage of the new fisheries code.
FLA holders whether individuals or corporate used to be able to apply to have their areas declared alienable and disposable after which they can purchase these from the government and have them titled. This was to end in 1975 with the issuance of Presidential Decree No. 704 under the martial law government. The decree provided that only fishpond sales patent already processed and approved on or before November 9, 1992 shall be given due course as long as the area applied for is fully developed as a fishpond and does not exceed 24 hectares. It is against such background that the present pattern of holdings and ownership should be viewed.
Although the law provided for a maximum area that an individual or a corporation can hold this was often skirted by the simple expediency of using several names (normally other members of the family) to apply for one large tract. Thus some families are know to own 300 ha or in one extreme case even 3,000 ha.
4.2.3. Farm Sizes and Holdings
A Philippine-wide study made by Librero et al (1977) using a sample of 1,175 fishponds, whether privately owned or under FLA, found that by number, 15.2 percent of the fishponds were one hectare or below while 33.4 percent were between 1.01 to 5.0 ha. Fishponds more than 5.0 ha made up 51.4 percent of the total number, of which those which were 50 hectares and above made up only 5 percent. However in terms of area, fishponds that were one hectare and below made up less than one percent of the total area of the sample. Fishponds that were more than 10 ha constituted 88.8 percent while 50 hectares and over made up 51 percent of the total fishpond area in the sample. (See Table 9)
No comparable study has been made since then. The only fishpond records available covers only public lands under Fishpond Lease Agreement (FLA) which is administered by BFAR as the licensing agency. Records show that there are 4,694 fishponds with a total area of 62,625 ha under FLA as of November 1998. In the 1998 FLA records, 2.4% of the 4,694 FLAs were one hectare or below while 51.5% fall between 1.001 to 5.000 ha as shown in Table 10. It may appear then that many of the brackishwater ponds are in the hands of small holders. In terms of number perhaps. In terms of area it is a different matter altogether. The pattern that emerges is similar to that in Librero et al’s 1977 survey. Only 0.1% is 1.0 ha and below while 78.5% is above ten hectares in size. Fishponds above 50 hectares constituted only 20.7% of the total area. But together with fishponds between 20.01 and 50.00 hectares in size the aggregate percentage is 63% of the total area. It was 56.7% in the 1977 study.
A cursory examination of the records also reveals that in many instances FLAs of adjoining fishponds, especially those measuring 5 ha or less have been issued to different individuals but with the same address and even surnames. This may mean the different parcels are actually part of one fishpond unit. Furthermore, many of the FLA holders are what may be considered absentee fishpond operators. Evidence of this is the fact that the majority of the FLA holders have mailing or residence address which are outside the locality where their particular fishponds are located.
There is no centralized record for private fishponds. Hence it will not be easy to conduct a similar analysis on privately owned fishponds except perhaps through a random survey as done by Librero et al in 1977. Once a fishpond is granted a patent of sale by the government it no longer falls under the jurisdiction of the national fisheries agency, BFAR. Then records for such fishponds may be found only by going through the entire records of the register of deeds of each province and/or city, if the said fishpond has already been titled. If due to some reason a property has not been issued a title, then the only record that will exist of it may be through the tax declarations in each municipality. The new fisheries code now requires all aquaculture holdings including fishponds, whether privately owned or leased from the government, to register the fishponds as such with their respective local government units.
4.2.4. The Equity Issue
A land reform decree (PD. No. 2) issued by then President Ferdinand Marcos in his own handwriting placed the entire Philippines under agrarian reform. However not long after, another presidential decree (P.D. No. 27) restricted land reform only to tenanted rice and corn lands. It was to correct such situation that the new government under President Corazon Aquino issued Proclamation No. 131 in 1986 putting all agricultural lands regardless of tenurial arrangements and commodity produced under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP. For the first time fishponds were included in the government’s land reform program.
When Congress was convened shortly after a new Constitution was ratified in 1987, one of their first acts was to pass the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 (CARL). Under CARL all fishponds, including those under FLAs, were included for distribution with a five hectare retention limit set. Automatically even for the FLAs, the maximum size for individuals was reduced to five hectares. The fishpond operators lobbied hard for the exemption of fishponds. The BFAR supported the fishpond operators in this position and in 1995 the land reform law was amended to exclude fishponds and shrimp ponds. Instead of outright distribution, the amended law entitles fishpond workers to an incentive plan equivalent to 7.5% of net profit before taxes which amount is supposed to be determined by an independent auditor.
At that time the shrimp industry was still booming. The large dollar earnings from shrimp export and the strong competition from the neighboring countries was made the main reason for the exemption. With the threat of land reform, it was argued, shrimp farm owners will be reluctant to invest in improvements and new technology to make them globally competitive. As it turned out even with the exemption the Philippine shrimp industry still crashed. Meanwhile Thailand’s shrimp industry continued to grow at a phenomenal rate in spite of, or because of, the fact that 80% of the Thai P. monodon production came from 12,500 small farms with a total area of 27,000 ha (Kongkeo, 1995) which is equivalent to an average area of no more than 2.16 ha.
The large landowners remain steadfast in their belief that agrarian reform is not a solution to the poverty problem and social inequity. The editorial of the newsletter of the Negros Prawn Producers and Marketing Cooperative (NPPMCI, 1998), stated their position as follows: “the implementation of the (land reform) law is liable to cause widespread strife among the landowners.....There is no showing that land reform will enliven the plight of the poor. Wtihout undermining their capabilities, it is also doubtful whether they (the farmers) can put up the necessary capital to maximize land use. Having been used to having a landlord on whom to call in times of need, this plunge to independence may have a crippling effect.”
After getting the fishponds exempted from agrarian reform, the fishpond industry is now lobbying to allow once again the sale and privatization of publicly owned fishpond lands. The new Fisheries Code reaffirmed the provision against further privatization of public lands first imposed in the Fisheries Decree of 1975. The last BFAR statistics in 1987 places the FLA area at 78,969 ha. Existing FLA record as of November 1998 indicates a total area of 62,625 ha. Presumably the difference represents areas where the FLA has been cancelled. This is a strong and well-funded lobby group. When BFAR issued Fisheries Administrative Order No. 125-1 in 1991 which increased the fishpond lease from PHP50.00 per hectare to PHP1,000 per hectare per year to reflect actual economic rent, the industry through the Chamber of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources was able to obtain a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) from the Court of Appeals effectively stopping its implementation. Until now the TRO has not yet been lifted.
The use of fishpens is a relatively recent development. It dates back only to 1970-1971 when the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) put up a demonstration fishpen at Looc in the municipality of Cardona, Rizal province. Having demonstrated that with natural lake productivity a yield of 1,500 kg can be realized in a fishpen without even requiring fertilizers, much less supplemental feeding, the technology caught on very fast. By 1973 a total of 4,800 hectares of fishpen had been developed with a total production which was estimated to be almost equal to the production in the 85,000 hectares of open water (Delmendo and Gedney, 1973). By 1980 the fishpen area increased to 7,000 hectares (dela Cruz, 1982). By 1983 photogrammetric survey indicated that the total area occupied by fishpens was a staggering 34,000 hectares (Misagal, 1986).
Fishpens are expensive to build. In 1973, when the technology was still new, it already cost PHP8,000 to 10,000 per hectare (Delemendo and Gedney, 1973), which at that time was equivalent to US$1,100 to 1,500. The cost depends not only on the site characteristics but also the size of the pen. The smaller the pen the greater the perimeter to area ratio and the greater the cost. Alferez (1977) estimated that a one hectare fishpen would have cost at least PHP29,127, (about US$4,100). Only those with access to capital were able to invest in it. Obviously this left out those who depend solely on artisanal fishing in the lake for their livelihood, resulting in a serious social problem not too long after its introduction. An attempt was made to help the marginalized sector by providing them with the means to participate in the then burgeoning industry, through the ADB and OPEC funded Laguna de Bay Fishpen Development Project. This will be discussed at a greater length in a pertinent section.
The legal size limit for fishpens by the LLDA for individual persons is 5 ha and for corporations and cooperatives, 50 ha. By creating, what were in effect, paper corporations some groups were able to enclose several hundred hectares into one fishpen area during the late 1970s to the 1980s. Conflict with small fishers was inevitable since the pen enclosures not only effectively reduced the open area where they can still earn their livelihood but also forced them to go around the fishpen perimeter just to reach an open area where they can still fish. This required additional time and effort on their part considering that many were dependent only on wooden paddles to propel themselves. Furthermore overzealous armed guards employed by the fishpen owners often did not hesitate to shoot anyone perceived to have strayed too close to the fishpen perimeter on suspicion of being poachers.
Such acts of violence merely focused public attention on the fishpens and generated public outcry for their dismantling. There were several attempts to do just that on the part of the lake administrators. However intense political pressure from influential people, who either owned the pens themselves or are good friends of the owners, often reduced such efforts to token exercises.
It took natural and market forces to finally reduce fishpen area. Repeated typhoons reduced many of the pens to shambles. In the earlier days the fishpen owners would just have repaired the damage and continue the operation. However with more than a third of the lake surface already covered with pens milkfish growth inside the pens already suffered. Instead of taking a mere four to five months for harvest it was now taking from seven to eight months. Fishkills also became a more common occurrence. The fishpen operators started to introduce supplementary food in the form of rice bran, stale bread from bakeries and even broken ice-cream cones.
As if to add to the fishpen operators’ woes, milkfish and tilapia grown in the lake seasonally acquires an earthy-muddy taste during the end of the dry season and at the onset of the rainy season. This makes it difficult to market the fish at a good price. The off-flavor was later traced to the bloom of Microcystis sp, a blue-green micro-algae. Under such situation, and with bamboo poles getting more scarce and expensive, it became uneconomic to invest so much for repairing the pens. Many were just abandoned and left to litter the lake surface.
At present there are only 167 fishpens registered with the LLDA. Together these fishpens have an aggregate area of 4,425 ha as shown in Table 11. Most of the fishpens are owned by corporations. It is public knowledge that unregistered fishpens still exist, but it is nowhere as rampant as it used to be in the early 1980s.
The use of fishpens has also spread to marine waters in other parts of the Philippines such as Pangasinan and La Union. These fishpens tend to be small, ranging only from 450 to 2,400 m2. In Pangasinan the small fishpens proliferated to the extent that they started to encroach on the fishing grounds of small fishers. Their excessive use of commercial feeds started to affect the environment. In 1997 after loud public outcry 95% of some 3,000 shallow water pens and cages were dismantled by virtue of an Executive Order issued by then President Fidel V. Ramos (Velasco, 1997, Sanchez, 1997).
As used in the Philippines, the term “cage” differs from “pen” in that “a cage is totally enclosed on all, or all but the top, sides by mesh or netting, whereas in pen culture the bottom of the enclosure is formed by the lake or sea bottom,” (Beveridge, 1984). Fish cages was introduced in the Philippines in 1965 when the Bureau of Fisheries first tried them out for the culture of common carp, tawes and goby in Cardona, Rizal one of the towns along Laguna de Bay (Alferez, 1977).
It is not clear when fish cages became popular in Laguna de Bay. In 1980 to 1981 it was still being tested and promoted as a poor man’s alternative to the fishpen, (Gonzales, 1984). By that time the cage design differed radically from the early versions in that instead of the movable wire mesh with wooden frame contraption, fishing net material was sewn into a rectangular bag with the top side open. The net bag is then kept taut by fastening it to a bamboo frame fixed to the bottom of the lake. The species of choice was, and continues to be, tilapia. It helped that tilapia by that time had become increasingly acceptable to the consumers. The fish cages gave the lake fishermen an opportunity to also participate in lake-based aquaculture. In 1985 the production from freshwater fishcages amounted only to 7,187 mt. This reached 35,362 mt in 1993. Production from marine cages started to be reported only in 1993. In 1997 total production from both freshwater and marine cages reached 43,000. (Figure 6)
Fish cages are simple to construct and do not require a huge investment. They can be scaled down to levels that are within reach of the poor. It is probably because of its low cost that the use of fish cages is more widespread than the fishpens. The cost of putting up fish cages varies depending on the type and size of cage. A survey in Taal Lake show from a low of PHP 9,300 for a floating cage measuring 5 x 10 m to a high of PHP28,960 for one measuring 18 x 20 m (US$ 358 to US$1,113) as shown in Table 12.
In Laguna de Bay, LLDA records for 13 municipalities around Laguna de Bay show that there are 640 registered fish cage farms ranging in size from 50 to 10,000 m2 - the maximum allowed by law. Together these 640 farms occupy only a total area of 175 hectares, for an average of 2,734 m2 per cage farm, with 29.0 percent ranging between 50 to 500 m2 and 20.7 percent between 501 to 1,000 m2 as shown in Figure 7.
In Taal Lake, an inventory conducted in 1995 showed a total of 3,140 fish cage units of varying sizes belonging to 1,138 fish cage operators. Most operators used floating cages (879) while some (212) used fixed cages. A small minority consisting of 38 operators opted for submerged cages. Unlike Laguna de Bay, most parts of Taal are relatively deep and are not suitable for fixed type of cages.
The most popular size appears to be those measuring 12 x 15 m (43%) which also occupied the largest total area (52.3%) as shown in Table 13. Cages measuring 10 x 10 m was a far second with only 21.7%. The municipalities around the lake have recently agreed on a uniform cage size of 10m x 10 m (Ms. Aypa, pers. comm). It is not known how many have complied with the new regulation. Most of the fixed cages were located along Pansipit River, the only outlet of the lake. The river-based cages were ordered demolished in 1997 to allow free access to migratory fish species and restore the river’s former scenic beauty.
An earlier study (Tan, et al, 1994) categorized the fishcage operators in Taal Lake into three categories: owner-operator, caretaker and owner-operator/caretaker. The study noted that only a small percentage are of the last category. Most are either of the first two categories. It was also observed that resident owner-operators usually have one to two units, the absentee owners tend to have ten units or more.
According to several fish cage owner-operators, the caretakers in Taal Lake work under either of two conditions: a 50% share in the net operating income or a flat rate monthly salary of PHP500 per cage. Feed is the major cost in cage operation. Since the caretaker has control over the feeds, and the harvest is, more often than not, purchased by traders on an ex-farm basis, transactions are transparent. Depending on the size of cage the average net income per growing cycle ranged from PHP6,040 to PHP25,370.75 in 1995 as shown in Table 14 (UPLB Foundation, 1995).
A caretaker can reportedly take care of ten cages at a time so even if he or she opts for a monthly salary, a monthly income of PHP5,000 is already assured. This compares well with the nominal daily wage of PHP130 for non-plantation agricultural workers in Batangas province where Taal Lake is located.
A discussion on cage culture will not be complete without including the culture of groupers and siganids. In several coastal communities grouper culture has taken hold due to the high price of the species. In Roxas City, Panay Island, small fishers along Palina Estuary were able to form a thriving cooperative based on grouper culture. The Bangbang Inland Fish Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative consists of 54 members coming from 34 families, when visited by this author in early 1996. With a seed capital of PHP50,000 from the Roxas City government they were able to put up their own cages and attained a 10 mt harvest in 1995, which at that time would have been worth PHP2.8 million. During a second visit in 1997, it was observed that the cooperative have acquired several chest freezers to keep excess feed, an air-compressor to provide emergency aeration, and a radio communication system to contact buyers as well as suppliers of fish feed (low-value fish from capture fisheries and fishponds).
In Lingayen Gulf where groupers are also being raised in cages side by side with milkfish and siganids, the species was found to generate the highest economic rent per unit area as shown in Table 15. (Morales and Padilla,1998). The said study did not distinguish between pens and cages but it is presumed that the groupers were raised only in cages.
One aquaculture system which appears to have benefited the most number of people in the Philippines directly as growers, rather than as hired hands, is seaweed farming, more specifically the farming of the carageenophyte seaweeds such as Eucheuma spp. and Kappaphycus alvarezii. As early as 1987 it was already estimated that in the province of Tawi-tawi alone there were 5,000 hectares of Eucheuma farms of which only 199 farms were reportedly licensed (Posadas, 1988). Eucheuma was also being farmed in 12 other provinces spread out over seven regions. By 1997 seaweed production was already being reported from 30 provinces and cities spread out over 11 of the country’s 14 regions. Growth was particularly fast between 1992 and 1996 when it grew at a sustained rate at an average of 17 percent, (Figure 8).
There is no recent study on the social and economic aspects of seaweed farming to match the extent of the study conducted by Posadas in 1988. However since there has been no radical change in the technological status after the discovery of the high yielding variety known as tambalang in 1973, most of Posadas’ observations covering the Sibutu area in Tawi-tawi and Bien Unido in Bohol, are probably still valid. These were as follows:
a) 84.3% of the seaweed farms were farmer-owned;Two recent analysis on the cost and returns for seaweed farming has recently been made. One was made by Hurtado-Ponce et al (1996) for Kappaphycus alverezii in the locality of Panagatan Cays, Caluya, Antique province (Panay Island). The other study appeared in the Fisheries Statistics of the Philippines, 1992-1996, for unspecified Eucheuma species, Gracilaria and Caulerpa in Bohol and Cebu and was atributed to a Policy Studies on Selected Fishery Industries conducted by the Strive Foundation (1998).b) Only 22.6% were licensed;
c) Most of the farms are less than one hectare in size with an average of 0.87 ha;
d) 64.2% financed their farm with their own money, and 25.6% were financed by traders;
e) 78.3% sold their harvest to traders and the rest directly to exporters or processors;
f) Intensive farms produced more than the extensive or semi-intensive farms but were more costly to operate so that the net profit of extensive farms were relatively higher;
g) Small farms were more productive, less expensive to operate and more profitable than the medium and large farms;
h) 72.1% had fishing as their other source of income and only 4.8% had no other source of income except seaweed farming; other sources of income were farming (5.7%), trading (3.9%) and services (13.5%);
i) The educational attainment in terms of years in school averaged 5.5 years;
j) The extent of farm training averaged 4.8 hours with another 7.2 hours for processing;
Hurtado-Ponce’s study involved 43 growers who represented 72% of the total number of seaweed growers in the study area. The farm sizes involved ranged from 280 to 17,500 m2 and averaged 3,500 m2 per farmer. In the said study which compared the fixed-bottom method and the hanging-line method, both methods were found to be highly profitable although the hanging-line method required a higher capital investment, as shown in Table 16.
Hurtado-Ponce computed a payback period of 0.10 year for the fixed-bottom method and 0.19 year for the hanging-line method. These figures are obviously theoretical and are derived using the usual formula for computing payback period (Total Investment/Annual Net Income). Actual payback can come only after the first cropping which takes from 105 to 135 days. The first 45 days after planting is apparently for seedling expansion purposes after which it takes another 60 to 90 days to realize the first harvest. The fact that the theoretical payback period is a meaningless number is simply a demonstration of the unusual nature of seaweed farming. Very few enterprises can have an first year’s net income that is from five to ten times higher than the initial investment.
The Strive Foundation economic study on seaweed farming which appeared in the Fisheries Statistics of the Philippines 1992-1996 did not have any information on the investment requirement for the Cebu and Bohol. The cost and returns was given on a per hectare per cycle basis without being annualized as shown in Table 17. In order to provide a better comparison with Hurtado-Ponce’s data from Antique the said cost and returns for Cebu and Bohol is annualized in Table 18. The result shows much lower bottom line figures than those obtained by Hurtado-Ponce. It also shows a wide disparity between production from hanging long-line and bottom culture. The farming of Caulerpa turns out to be comparable or even potentially better than Eucheuma farming with an annual net income of PHP88,841 as against PHP72,408 for Eucheuma farming using the long-line method in Bohol. It should be borne in mind of course that the potential market for Caulerpa is limited compared to that of Eucheuma.
The farming of Gracilaria yielded the lowest net income at PHP36,791 per ha per year. An earlier study made by Hurtado-Ponce et al (1992) made on eight farms in Western Visayas showed an even lower figure of PHP6,313 per ha per year when the algae is grown in a static pond. Growing them in a canal with a constant movement and entry of water was found to result in much higher yield so that net income reaches PHP41,766 per ha per year Table 19.
Despite its fairly long history, the oyster farming industry has remained a relatively small industry in the Philippines. The same can be said for mussels. Part of the problem is the market. Unlike fish, oysters and mussels are not commodities which families would normally have as part of their daily meal except perhaps for coastal families who live along natural oyster or mussel beds. In the Philippines, they are, what may be considered, “recreational” food in the sense that they are popular for parties, picnics and drinking sessions.
There never was much of an export market to speak of to help boost the demand. In 1987, some 5,700 kg of fresh chilled or frozen and 7,609 kg of preserved oysters were exported together with some 3,382 kg of mussels. The present fisheries statistics now lump such exports with other molluscan or crustacean preparations. Sometime in 1995 a Korean company set up a large shellfish processing plant in Capiz province, Panay Island to serve the export market. This has increased the demand within the area and has perked up added interests in oyster and mussel farming. The frequent occurrence of red tide incidence on the other hand can only serve to discourage further expansion of the industry.
In the 1980 Census of Fisheries, 1,125 oyster farm and 629 mussel farms covering a total area of 460.3 ha and 230.2 ha respectively. The BFAR (1997) reported a total productive area of 227.98 ha for oysters and 381.22 ha for mussels as of 1995. Records show that during the last 12 years, the oyster and mussel production has been oscillating between 10,361 and 18,290 mt for oysters and 11,644 and 25,070 mt for mussels without any definite downward or upward growth as shown in Figure 9.
In a 1974 socio-economic study of the mussel farms in Bacoor, Cavite, Orduña and Librero (1976), 50% measured 600 meters or smaller, and the other 50% more than 600 meters in a sample of 30 farms. The smallest farm measured 327 m2 and the largest 1.3 ha. Although dated, the said observation may still be valid considering the lack of any new development in the area. The only significant development in mussel farming since then is its spread to other bays in the Philippines where natural stocks are found. Thus in a more recent study made in Western Visayas, Samonte et al (1994) found that 81.5% were less than 1,000 m2 in size. Most of the mussel farms still use bamboo stakes as substrate.
Oysters have a wider distribution than green mussels. Consequently oyster farms are found in more areas than mussel farms. Most are small, measuring only a few hundred square meters. In a survey by Librero et al (1976) which covered four major oyster-producing regions, the majority of the farms surveyed had areas of 500 m2 or less as shown in Table 20. As with mussels, it appears that these observations, which were made more than 20 years ago, are still valid. Samonte et al (1994) in a survey in Western Visayas found 72.8% of the oyster farms were below 1,000 m2 while there were only 2.2% that were one hectare or bigger. In the earlier study by Librero et al (1976) some of the farms surveyed had existed since before 1940 while the majority were established after 1960 (Table 21).
A majority of oyster and mussel farmers has fishing as their other source of income. This was as true during a 1990 study in Western Visayas (Siar et al, 1995) as it was in 1974 (Librero et al, 1976, Orduña and Librero, 1976) as shown in Table 22.
Mussel farming appears more lucrative than oyster farming. In a survey involving 70 oyster farms and 76 mussel farms in Western Visayas, Samonte et al (1994) found that on a per 1,000 m2 basis an oyster farm can have a net farm income of only PHP720 per year while a mussel farm can have as much as PHP4,211 as shown in Table 23. This is to be expected. Oyster farms operate in shallower areas (1.0 to 1.5 m) than mussel farms (2.0 to 7.0 m) so it can use only much shorter stakes or shorter lines and therefore offer less growing surfaces.
Although the practice was never widely accepted, field trials have shown that raising fish with rice can yield a higher income than rice monoculture. Bimbao et al (1990) compared the economics of rice-fish culture with those of rice monoculture and found that economic indicators improved with the shift from rice monoculture to rice-fish culture which was taken to imply that ride-fish culture is a more profitable and productive farming system than rice monoculture (See Table 24). Ahmed et al (1992) also concluded that there are considerable economic incentives for rice-fish culture under the conditions of yields, costs, prices and farm resource endowments orevailing during the study period.
Instead of an outright integration of fish with rice, an attempt was made in the early 1980s to “re-introduce” backyard fish farming to farmers as part of an integrated approach to rural reconstruction in the province of Cavite (Southern Luzon). Fermin (1983) followed the results of thirteen participants to the project. The area was 80% planted to rice and 20% to secondary crops. Water for the fish farm came from the irrigation canal. The results showed that such a venture would most likely have a return on investment of about 55.5% in approximately 6 months. Furthermore the practice not only increased the protein intake of the participating farmers but also the community in general since approximately 90% were sold locally to co-villagers.
