MAFAR to host Bangsamoro Aquaculture Congress

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform held a two-day Bangsamoro Aquaculture (Tilapia and Seaweeds) Congress on December 1-2, 2021, at Em Manor Hotel, Cotabato City.

MAFAR Minister Mohammad S. Yacob, Ph.D., Director General for Fisheries Pendatun S. Patrasa, and Director Macmod D. Mamalangkap, Ph.D. of Fisheries Services, led the activity.

Ninety-two (92) different stakeholders from the five BARMM provinces, fisherfolks, and other organizations attended.

Director-General Patarasa said our mandate must established and promote agri-fishery growth by conserving our resources. The Bangsamoro region has a lot of potentials to unleash in this field 1,700 fishponds (PSA data), which need to be used for food production and stabilize and empower approximately 270,000 fisherfolks (based on the Fish Registration).

We need to be food secured and develop our resources, and we can only achieve that through the cooperation of everyone, he stressed.

Minister Yacob said we will achieve direction to improve the living conditions of our Bangsamoro fisherfolk, and may we achieve the goal of this activity in the hope that this will be the beginning for us to value our resources.

Different topics presented by resource speaker DG Patarasa, The Concept of the Blue Economy in the BARMM; Dr. Ramjie S. Odin, Vice-Chancellor and Research and Devt. of MSU-DOS, Aquaculture Technologies & Industry Updates; Demosthenes F. Togonon, Seaweeds National Coordinator, BFAR-CO in Status/ Updates of the Philippine Seaweed Industry; Zabidi S. Badrudin, Production Head, MFFTC, Kabacan, N. Cotabato; Dr. Tong Pinguiaman, Chief of Agribusiness and Marketing Div. of MAFAR represented by Datu Hamsur Jainon Zaid; Dr. Joseph Christopher C. Rayos, Chief, Science Research Specialist of NFRDI-DA-CO with Aquaponics and Esmael W. Ibrahim, MPA and Bangsamoro Director-General, MHSD-BARMM with Islamic Financial Management.

Also present during the event were Chief of Staff Arphia Ebus, who gave updates on zones of cooperation in Sibutu passage, and Director General for Agrarian Reform Services Taugan S. Kikay.