Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Farmers urged to hike production of seaweeds By Joy Romares-Sevilla
HIGH prices and high demand of seaweeds are among the factors why farmers are encouraged to plant more and increase their harvest area.
In an interview with Sun.Star Davao, William Baranggan, provincial agricultural statistics officer of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), said that from P5 per kilogram, prices of wet seaweeds significantly increased to P12 per kilogram.
"This increase was just observed a month ago. Prices of dried seaweeds also increased from P35 to P84 per kilogram," Baranggan said, adding that the increase in the prices of seaweeds can be attributed to the high demand of the commodity for export.
However, Baranggan said that Davao City's production of seaweeds partially decreased for the first and second quarter of the year due to port expansion in Budbud in Tibungco, which is identified as one of the areas for seaweeds production in Davao City other than Panacan. He failed though to reveal how much decrease was recorded for the period.
"But we expect that the volume of production will increase by the fourth quarter of this year because farmers are now looking for areas where they can plant. The high prices of seaweeds today also encouraged farmers to plant more," Baranggan said.
Meanwhile, BAS data showed the production of seaweeds in the country from April to June this year increased by 3.55 percent from 31,133.63 metric tons in 2007 to 332,531.21 metric tons in 2008 of the same period.
Baranggan said the growth was the result of the availability of quality planting materials from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) nurseries, improved farm maintenance resulting in good quality produce.
"The production of seaweeds in Davao Region is very low. In the Philippines, Palawan was identified to have the biggest production of seaweeds," Baranggan said, adding that for April to June period, Palawan was able to produce more than 73,000 metric tons.
"Most of the seaweeds produce in Davao Region are shipped and processed in Cebu," he said.
It was learned that the top five seaweed-producing areas in the country are Palawan, Tawi-tawi, Sulu, Bohol, and Maguindanao.
