Day: January 27, 2009

The Independent Hatch

The Independent Hatch

Pangasinan, known for its yearly delight of varieties of bangus, holds another niche for small time backyard farmers.

By Hans Audric B. Estialbo

“The secrets to our salted eggs are strictly confidential,” says AKCE Marketing owner Alex Estialbo, one of the only independent salted egg raisers and sellers in Pangasinan, “I guess normal naman ‘yun at understandable for other businessmen to give out the ingredients to their business di ba?”

Alex, at 40, looks too quiet, if not secretive, for a businessman. He says he stumbled upon the potential of the salted egg business in a casual fashion. He was working for his brother who owned a full-sized bakery, also in Pangasinan, for over a year; and after some time, felt the urge to venture to another line of commerce. After leaving the life of making sweets, pastries and cakes, and swinging from one gig to another to make a decent buck, he stopped and deemed the promise of turning soil to investment.

The perfect spot to jumpstart the business was the backyard. Their modest residence hid a spacious backyard where two more houses could be built. And the brainchild instantly materialized.

As everyone knows, egg is one of the poultry products that cannot be stored for a long time. It made him think of how he could solve this problem, especially when the production is big and the prices are low. With simple processing and cheap materials, the salted eggs proved to be a great demand and can be stored longer. But first things first – how exactly are salted eggs made? He replied, “The basic takes 90 minutes to finish. Make available a basket of eggs about 50 and select 20 eggs that are not cracked or damaged. Clean and scour the eggs with sand paper, preferably no. 0. Weigh 500 grams of salt and 1000 grams of brick powder. Mix the brick powder and salt in a bowl and add ¾ glass pure water/tanned water until it becomes a batter.

“Cover the egg uniformly with 1 cm of the batter around the egg. Store the eggs covered with paste in the box with stacks and place it in right upward position in a safer place.”

It’s a must as well to check them twice. Eggs to be salted must not be cracked, rotten, containing embryo, must still be fresh and uncooked. Alex continued, “Some simple methods to select good eggs include electric candling as well as candling using a rolled up paper. By candling it is possible to see whether the eggs are still fresh or not. If the air space is big, the egg is old; if the air space is small the egg is fresh. Besides this a fresh egg has also a viscose albumen and a yolk that has not a visible image when candling, and even it is visible the yolk will not move when you shake the egg. If the egg is a hatched egg you can see blood vessels. An egg with blood vessels or blood spots won’t be suitable.”

For safe keeping, he suggests that on the storage of the eggs during 15-20 days, ratio of salt to brick powder should be 1:3. So for 10 eggs 200 grams of salt and 600 grams of brick powder are needed. In fact, the result is better if eggs are stored longer. If you prefer the color of the yolk to be yellow, use dark tanned water, which is very good as tea contains preservation chemical tannin. When making a lot of salted eggs, one can use more liquid batter of salt and clay and put the eggs inside this batter, which will accelerate the process of salting. Instead of brick powder, also acid loam and scouring sand (fine ash) can be used. The taste of the really depends on the length of time the eggs are stored and the amount of salt and brick powder used.

AKCE, a name he patterned from his two children’s names: Allister Kaye and Allison Kim C. Estialbo, makes 10,000 to 15,000 eggs in a month, which they also deliver themselves to the stores they now call their sukis, which they sell at P8.50 each. The remaining eggs, if there will be any left, are left to his other helpers to sell themselves in the nearby market at P6.50 a piece.

“With a small investment, all that anybody needs actually is just perseverance. It’s better for smalltime businessmen like me to do the work and oversee everything. By doing so, I pick up firsthand experience and information. At ‘dun ko natututunan ‘yung mga sikreto ng good businesses,” said Alex. Smalltime backyard farmers and entrepreneurs like him play good examples to those who want to be their own line of specialty.

source:Marid Agribusiness, July 2007

Raising Tilapia in Your Backyard-Part 2

Raising Tilapia in Your Backyard

The Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center Foundation gives these timely and relevant tips on growing tilapia.

By: Henrylito D. Tacio

 

Stocking the pondBefore stocking the pond with tilapia, be sure to drain it thoroughly and remove the weeds and unwanted fish that may be present. Allow your pond to dry up until it cracks before refilling with fresh, clean water. Fertilize the pond one week before stocking.Stock the pond either early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the water temperature is low in order to avoid weakening of the fish. Allow the water in the pond to mix gradually with the water in the fish container before putting the fish into the pond.Care and maintenance

  •          Feed daily during morning and afternoon at one portion of the pond. Supplement feeds with fine rice bran, bread crumbs, earthworms, termites and others at an initial rate of 5% of the total body weight of the fish.
  •          Maintain the natural fish food by adding more fertilizer. Place chicken droppings in sacks and suspend in the water at every corner of the pond. Put 2.5 kg of chicken manure per bag.
  •          Maintain a water level depth of 1-1.5 meters. Gradually remove excess fingerlings after the third month of stocking. Retain six fingerlings per square meter. (As another source of income, you can sell those excess fingerlings to other farmers in the area.)
  •          Plant “kangkong” and “gabi” at one portion to provide shade for the fish during hot weather and to serve as growing media for natural fish food. Water lily also provides shade. However, do not totally cover the pond with plants as this will interfere with the natural food production process.
  •          Prevent seepages and leakages by patching them with mud. Clear the pond dikes of weeds.
  •          Check the gates occasionally to prevent entry of other fish species and avoid loss of stock. If your home lot is easily flooded, place stones around the top of dikes to prevent the escape of fish if the water overflows.
  •          Find ways to keep the mudfish (“haluan”) out of your tilapia pond. The mudfish is a ferocious predator of tilapia fingerlings and even larger fish.
  •          Plant more trees within the sources of water to maintain the flow. Protect the riverbeds from toxic waste water and pesticides and avoid dumping of garbage.
  •          Plant trees and grasses near the dike to avoid erosion.

HarvestingYou can harvest tilapia by using dip net or a lift net. Lower the net down to the bottom of the pond and spread a small amount of feed on the water just above the net. Lift the net as fast as possible to prevent the escape of the tilapia. After harvesting, stock the pond again.Integrated farmingResearch at the MBRLC shows that you can make your fishpond more productive and profitable by raising a pig at the site of the pond. Pig wastes go directly to the pond and help to fertilize the tiny plants that serve as the tilapia’s main food. Tests have proven that tilapia cultured in this kind of pond can be eaten without any harmful effect. Many farmers in Mindanao have already adopted this technology in their own fishponds.Uses of tilapiaTilapia is a good quality food and has a firm and delicious flesh. Unlike milkfish (“bangus”), it has few fine bones.Tilapia is suitable also for processing into dried, salted-dried, smoked or pickled products. It is a good insect and worm predator and is known to help clean many injurious insects from ponds. To certain extent, tilapia can help in keeping down the number of mosquito larvae, thus preventing them from developing into troublesome and harmful mosquitoes. source:Marid agribusiness, July 2007 

Raising Tilapia in Your Backyard-Part 1

Raising Tilapia in Your Backyard

The Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center Foundation gives these timely and relevant tips on growing tilapia.

By: Henrylito D. Tacio

Tilapia is now widely distributed around the world.

It has become the mainstay of small-scale aquaculture projects of poor fish farmers in the developing world. According to Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, the executive director of the Laguna-based Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD), tilapia is now cultured in more than 70 countries.

Fishery experts have dubbed tilapia as “aquatic chicken” because it possesses many positive attributes that suit the fish for a varied range of aquaculture systems. For one, tilapia tolerates a wide range of aquaculture systems. For one, tilapia tolerates a wide range of environmental conditions and is highly resistant to disease and parasitic infections.

Other good traits of tilapia include excellent growth rates on a low-protein diet, ready breeding in captivity and ease of handling; and, more importantly, wide acceptance as food fish.

Next to milkfish (more popularly known as “bangus”), tilapias are among the widely cultured species in the Philippines. The culture of tilapia in freshwater ponds and cages has been a commercial success.

Currently, there are an estimated 15,000 hectares of freshwater ponds and 500 hectares of cages in lakes in lakes and reservoirs producing over 50,000 metric tons of tilapia.

Tilapia was first introduced into the country in the 1950’s. Today, there are four species raised in the country: Oreochromis niloticus, O. mossambicus, O. aureus, and Tilapia zillii.

Business Opportunities

The Philippines now ranks fourth among the top ten large tilapia producers in the world – after China, Egypt and Thailand. Other top producing countries, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), are Indonesia, Uganda Mexico, Tanzania, Kenya, and Sri Lanka.

Tilapia production grew by 5 percent during the last 14 years, noted the industry strategic plan for tilapia. This served as a major determinant in the gross supply of tilapia in the country. Tilapia surplus stood around 2,000 to 5,000 metric tons during the same period. At 2020, the surplus is expected to reach around 10,000 metric tons.

Tilapia products – fresh and frozen fillets, whole and gutted fish-have become commodities in the international seafood trade. However, the Philippines cannot supply the international market with frozen whole fish since our price is much higher than those coming from Thailand and Taiwan.

Here are some tips from the Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation Inc.:

Site selection

Select a site where water is accessible throughout the year. It should be well exposed to sunlight, which hastens the growth and multiplication of small aquatic plants called algae (“lumot”), which serve as food for the tilapia. More important, it should not be flooded during rainy season.

Pond preparation

The size of the pond should be determined by the number of fish you want to raise. A good guide is 2-3 mature fish per square meter of water surface. The depth of the pond should be one meter with water not less than three-fourths meter deep. Manage the water so that it will not flow continuously through the pond.

To ensure that no fish will escape, fine-meshed bamboo or fence should screen ponds that have waterways connecting them to canals or outside water. Both the inside and outside end of each waterway should be screened. Use big bamboos for inlets and outlets for small ponds.

Pond fertilization

Since the pond is newly constructed, you have to apply fertilizer. Do this one week before the stocking. Apply chicken manure on the pond bottom with water depth of about 6 centimeters at the rate of one kilo for every 10 square meters. Fertilize the pond once a month to ensure good production of algae. You can either use commercial fertilizer or organic matter like manure, compost, ipil-ipil leaves, etc. If you do not have organic matter, apply every month one-half kilo of urea and one-half kilo of 15-15-15 for every 100 square meters of water surface.

Securing fish fingerlings

Obtain your first supply of young tilapia from any reliable fishpond owner. One source of tilapia fingerlings is the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation Inc. in Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur. If fingerlings are unavailable, you need about 20-30 pairs of good breeders to star reproducing in your tilapia pond of 10×20 feet. If fingerlings are available, you will need to plan on about 5 to 6fingerlings per square meter of water surface area. The most common breeds of tilapia available are: Nilotica, Mozambique, and GIF (genetically modified).

Source: Marid Agribusiness, July 2007