News

Seeing the tremendous potential in slipper lobster production, researchers at SEAFDEC/AQD embarked on the task of developing hatchery techniques in the Philippines.

In a world’s first, researchers successfully spawned the round scad Decapterus macrosoma in captivity at SEAFDEC/AQD in Tigbauan, Iloilo, marking a critical milestone towards farming the fish, locally known as galunggong.

Automated fish farming run by sensors, artificial intelligence, and powered by the internet and big data is seen to be the next frontier in sustainable production to meet the future demand for seafood.

World-class quality testing can now be enjoyed by fish farmers and researchers for their feeds and water samples at the Centralized Analytical Laboratory (CAL) of SEAFDEC/AQD in Tigbauan, Iloilo.

Keyboard warriors were unleashed to Facebook by an aquaculture development center, not to spread negativity nor troll the comment section but to battle

Aiming to establish hatcheries to produce seeds and accelerate aquaculture development in the Philippines' second largest island, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) formalized a three-year partnership with SEAFDEC/AQD.

Dan Baliao, the current Chief of SEAFDEC/AQD was reappointed to a third term and will serve for another two years until 6 Sept. 2023.

To help oyster producers capture the premium market, a mollusk scientist devised a simple method of growing oysters that are not only single, but also young and meaty.

In Brazil, declining populations of grouper make it one of the country’s endangered species. However, Claudia Kerber, a former SEAFDEC/AQD trainee, is at the forefront of its conservation and repopulation for more than a decade.

To surmount the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, SEAFDEC/AQD migrated its Marine Fish Hatchery (MarFish) training course online and conducted a first session last 14–29 June 2021.

SEAFDEC/AQD has given the public unrestricted access to over 1,800 publications, including full-text digitized books, extension manuals, conference proceedings, annual reports, and other materials authored by the organization’s scientists and researchers.

  Back in 2018, eggs from infected shrimp spawners would be promptly chlorinated and disposed – all 200,000 to 1 million of them per brood – to quell notorious pathogens that continue to devastate shrimp farms worldwide to the tune of billions of dollars yearly. This was the practice at the SEAFDEC/AQD Tiger Shrimp Spawner/Broodstock Facility in Iloilo, Philippines where incoming spawners are screened for pathogens, through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, before allowing their eggs into a highly biosecure hatchery. Upon releasing their eggs, the spawners, are tested for the white spot syndrome virus (WSSV), monodon baculovirus (MBV), infectious hypodermal and hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV), yellow head virus (YHV), acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND), and the parasite Enterocytozoon hepatopenaei (EHP). To …

To help lower the price of fish amidst volatile food prices across the country, the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD) is coming up with a new fish feed formulation that is cost-efficient and eco-friendly.

The embattled milkfish industry in the Philippines got a shot in the arm as the first rehabilitated hatchery in Western Visayas, which is expected to produce 5 to 10 million bangus fry every year, started its operations to address the persistent shortage of milkfish seeds in the country. Located in the province of Aklan, the 1,787 square meter Batan Bangus Satellite Hatchery was launched in February this year under the National Fry Sufficiency Program of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR). The hatchery used to produce shrimp fry in 1983 but outbreaks of diseases in shrimp during the 90s led the hatchery to cease its operations in 1995. Now, it is one of the central …

The African swine fever threatening the protein supplies of the country still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the chief of an international research center to call for more youth to be involved in aquaculture. “Now, more than ever, is the time for our youth to engage in the efficient production of healthy protein through aquaculture,” said Dan Baliao, chief of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD) based in Iloilo. Baliao said fish is more efficient to produce than even poultry, taking as little as 1 kilogram of feeds to produce 1 kilogram of fish. Yet, there are not enough skilled personnel to competently build and run fish farms in the country. Data from the Commission on …

    ROXAS City – To boost the local aquaculture industry, SEAFDEC/AQD Chief Dan Baliao said abandoned and underutilized hatcheries in the province should be rehabilitated to produce much-needed crablets and fish fry. He said this during a dialogue with local fish farmers who aired that there were not enough suppliers of crablets that they seed into their fishpond. “The problem here in Capiz is that our crablets come from Bicol, Sarangani, and Cagayan Valley. How about us here in Capiz?” asked Ma. Cristina Dyna Honrado, vice-chair of the Capiz Aquaculture Producers Cooperative. Other fish farmers acknowledged that while the SEAFDEC/AQD hatchery, based in nearby Iloilo, can supply crablets, the volume is still not enough, so they end up buying …

SEAFDEC/AQD is promoting a simple technology to address the perennial shortage of milkfish fry that continues to hound fish farmers in the Philippines during the colder months of the year.

There are not enough catfish in the “Catfish Country” of Zarraga, Iloilo, but recent findings in one farm may just be the catalyst that could catapult the fish into abundance. Zarraga Pantat Fingerlings was one of the many farms struggling to keep pace with buyers’ demands while itself suffering from many catfish eggs that fail to hatch and catfish fry that die before they can be sold to other farmers that grow them in ponds.     Larry Pañoso, the hatchery operations in-charge, said that they achieved a breakthrough in January when  their production reached an all-time high of 500,000 fry per week after the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD) helped resolve a problem with their water …

SEAFDEC/AQD is nearing the completion of two multi-species hatcheries and a milkfish broodstock facility at its research complex in Tigbauan, Iloilo. These priority infrastructure projects are being built to intensify demonstration and techno-transfer programs, as well as to help address the shortage of aquaculture seeds in the Philippines, the host country of the research center.

Just off Molocaboc Island, beneath a turquoise canopy of water, fishers search the coral reef to pick out abalone and sea cucumber, two prized delicacies in Asian cuisine. Live abalone sells abroad for up to $120 or approximately P5,700 a kilo, and dried sea cucumber, $2000 or about P96,000 a kilo. But the fishers are not here to cash in on the abalone grazing on coralline substrates and the sea cucumber burrowing in the white sand. Not yet. They carefully weigh and size them, log the numbers in a notebook, and return them to the reef to continue to grow and reproduce. During the formative years of the sea ranching project, the fisherfolks asked when they will benefit from the …