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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Speak out: Downgrading of BFAR
By Rep. luis villafuerte
Camarines Sur
The plan of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to downgrade the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is ill-considered and foolish.
Diminishing BFAR would be highly counterproductive. We may, in fact, have to eventually upgrade the agency and establish a new, full-grown department dedicated entirely to developing fisheries.
Several members of Congress and I have been contemplating the creation of a new Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources long before the DA first thought of reducing BFAR.
Being an archipelago, fishing and allied industries are of strategic importance to the national economy.
By our geographical nature, thousands of coastal communities also subsist daily on our marine resources.
In fact, in terms of value, fisheries now account for almost 25 percent of our total agricultural output. And going forward, we are counting on the sector to further enlarge its share of gross agricultural yield.
Data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics indicate that the country’s fisheries production grew rapidly from just 2.6 million metric tons (MT) in 1998 to over four million MT in 2005.
Demographics clearly point to less land becoming available for farming in the years ahead. Thus, we really have no choice but to increasingly rely on fisheries and aquatic resources to produce adequate food supply, fight hunger and ease poverty.
With increased support, fisheries and aquaculture would definitely serve as bigger drivers of future economic and employment growth.
The DA earlier bared a plan to lower BFAR from a line to a mere staff bureau, and to transfer its regulatory services to a new, smaller office.
BFAR field offices, now relatively self-operating, would also be put directly under DA regional directors.
The Revised Fisheries Code, also known as Republic Act 8850, upgraded BFAR from a staff to a line bureau in 1998.
At present, BFAR also oversees the Fisheries Technology Center, National Freshwater Fisheries Technology Center, National Inland Fisheries Technology Center, National Marine Fisheries Development Center, National Integrated Fisheries Technology and Development Center, National Seaweed Technology and Development Center, Fisheries Biological Center and the Mindanao Freshwater Technology Center.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 19, 2006 issue)
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