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O. hornorum cross used in ponds of 15 parts per thousand salinity. (Photo by Kevin Fitzsimmons) |
he Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand were the stops on a recent trip made by University of Arizona PD/A CRSP researcher Kevin Fitzsimmons, whose focus was to examine tilapia-shrimp polyculture systems in all three countries. The trip was conducted in conjunction with collaborators Remedios Bolivar of Central Luzon State University (CLSU), located in Muñoz, Philippines, and Yang Yi of the Asian Institute of Technology, near Bangkok, Thailand. The trip was also timed to coincide with the International Forum on Tilapia Farming, held February 25 to 27 in Los Baños, Philippines. Fitzsimmons and Bolivar were both involved with the forum. Fitzsimmons presented a paper entitled “Reuse of effluents from tilapia farms for growing irrigated crops and seaweeds.” Rafael Guerrero, executive director of the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development, was the organizer of the conference. Former CRSP researchers Tom Popma, Auburn University, and Bill Shelton, University of Oklahoma, were other invited speakers who presented results of PD/A CRSP projects.
| The Philippines is one of the major producers of tilapia with over 100,000 metric tons (220,000,000 lbs) produced per year. Virtually all of the production is consumed in the Philippines. Thailand also produces around 100,000 metric tons per year with minimal exports. |
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Remedios Bolivar, Bong Bolivar, and Fitzsimmons visited two farms in Bulacan Province that had experimented with tilapia-shrimp polyculture. One had switched to milkfish-shrimp polyculture, which they found to be more lucrative, while the other raised wild tilapia that had come in with source water. During the visit, one person was harvesting tilapia with a pellet gun—a new harvest method for all of us.
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in pond in Vietnam. (Photo by Kevin Fitzsimmons) |
After the conference Remedios Bolivar and Fitzsimmons were invited to Negros Island to view a series of tilapia-shrimp projects. Franic Domingo and Ray Visitacion work within a cooperative of farmers on Negros who have adopted a tilapia-shrimp polyculture system that has been very successful. The system utilizes hapa net pens stocked with tilapia and placed in the center of the pond. Shrimp are stocked outside the hapas and paddlewheels circulate water, which carries wastes to the center where they are consumed by the fish. In addition, the reservoir pond at the head of the farm intake water supply is heavily stocked with tilapia. Domingo and Visitacion observe that the tilapia seem to maintain a favorable algae bloom in the system, encourage a beneficial bacterial community, and reduce the number of zooplankters. The incidence of disease in the polyculture ponds appears to be lower than in monoculture ponds. Members of the cooperative have also developed a branded tilapia with retail stores and a restaurant featuring their tilapia.
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(Photo by Kevin Fitzsimmons) |
In Vietnam, Yang Yi and Fitzsimmons were invited to Can Tho University and met there with CRSP host country principal investigators Nguyen Thanh Phuong and Truong Quoc Phu. The group toured the tilapia-shrimp farming areas in the Mekong Delta but never actually found the tilapia-shrimp farms. It always seemed that the farmers doing it were “over that way.” However, they did manage to visit plenty of shrimp farms that were polyculturing milkfish and shrimp or rotating rice and shrimp. Can Tho University has an active extension service in addition to the university education and research activities. Vietnam’s tilapia industry will continue to grow, given its plentiful supply of high-quality water and large consumer base. Red tilapia has become the fish of choice in this region and is found in most restaurants and grocery stores.
In Thailand, Yang Yi introduced the people working on the tilapia-shrimp polyculture project. These include two graduate students, Potjanee Nadtirom, who is taking the lead on the survey of farmers, and Wanwisa Saelee, who is conducting the pond trials. They both accompanied Fitzsimmons to visit tilapia-shrimp polyculture operations in three provinces in Thailand. The operations were implementing several techniques for polyculture with shrimp. These included cage culture, stocking in the farm reservoir, and using the shrimp pond as a nursery for fry and fingerlings. They were using Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus, in low-salinity water and a strain of red tilapia in the more saline locations.
Red tilapia strains are strongly marketed throughout the region. For example, the Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group, an agribusiness conglomerate, has developed a red strain called Tabtim, described on the company’s website as “a cross between the Nile tilapia, black Tilapia, and its Israeli, Florida, and Taiwanese cousins.” There is a strong advertising presence for the CP fish, with posters in grocery stores and restaurants. Renaming the red strains has become a successful marketing theme in Thailand, Vietnam, and China. In all three countries, the red tilapia demands a 30 to 40% premium even though it tastes exactly the same as the darker-skinned tilapia.
| The PD/A CRSP has been active at the Freshwater Aquaculture Center at Central Luzon State University for many years. Chris Brown at Florida International University is the principal investigator at the lead US institution for the Philippines Project. |
These PD/A CRSP host countries—Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam—continue to be world leaders in tilapia research, production, and consumption. The collaborations are contributing to the improvement of research and extension capacity and training of students. The amount of fish produced in these countries makes a significant contribution to food security and to the economic development in the region.
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