Unfavorable weather caused the country’s fisheries production to decline by 6.34 percent to 4.35 million metric tons (MMT) in 2016, from 4.69 MMT in 2015, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In its report, titled “Fisheries Situation 2016,” the PSA said all fisheries subsectors posted production declines.
“The decline was reflected in all subsectors, namely, commercial [6.35 percent], municipal fisheries [6.47 percent] and aquaculture [6.27 percent],” the PSA said in the report published on Tuesday.
Commercial fisheries recorded a total volume output of 1.05 MMT, compared to the 1.084 MMT posted in 2015, according to the PSA. Commercial fisheries accounted for 23.33 percent of the sector’s total production.
“Less species were caught because of hot seawater temperature brought about by El Niño phenomenon that prevailed during the first semester,” the report read.
The PSA report showed that municipal fisheries production, which accounted for 26.13 percent of total output, declined to 1.4 MMT in 2016, from 1.22 MMT in 2015.
Of the figure, 976,838 metric tons (MT) were caught in marine municipal fishing grounds. This was 3.45 percent lower than the 1.01 MMT recorded in 2015.
Meanwhile, fish caught in inland municipal fishing grounds declined by more than a fifth, or by 21.37 percent, to 160,989 MT in 2016, from 204,733 MT recorded in 2015.
“Less fishing activities were observed as prolonged hot weather conditions were experienced in the coastal areas followed by rough seas and typhoons toward the end of the year,” the PSA said.
Fish caught in aquaculture farms, which accounted for half of the country’s total production last year, dropped by 6.27 percent to 2.2 MMT, from 2.35 MMT in 2015.
“High mortality and slow growth of species happened amid dry spell. Seaweed farms were affected by ice-ice disease and epiphytes,” the report read.
“Scarcity of planting materials and low buying price offered by seaweed traders all year round resulted to less aqua farms in operations,” it added.
The government is targeting to increase commercial fishing production by 2.5 percent and municipal fishing by 1 percent annually between 2017 and 2022, according to the draft chapter of the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022.
The draft blueprint added that the government is eyeing to increase aquaculture production by 5 percent every year.
Image credits: Mau Victa