BUTUAN CITY — Eleven local government units (LGUs) from the provinces of Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Norte were identified as beneficiaries of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources’ project on Fisheries and Coastal Resiliency (FishCORE).
Launched in 2023, the FishCORE is a seven-year project and it is expected to end in 2029. It is designed to improve the source of income of the fisherfolk in the coastal communities and the challenges of making fisheries and aquatic resources utilization sustainable.
According to the report of the Philippine Statistics Office on the Poverty Incidence among the Basic Sectors for the year 2021, fisherfolks is the poorest sector followed by the farmers.
In Agusan del Norte, the local government units of Butuan City, Carmen, Nasipit, Buenavista, Magallanes, Cabadbaran City, Jabonga, and Tubay are expected to benefit from the said project, while in Surigao del Norte, it will be catering the LGUs of Malimono, San Francisco and Surigao City.
According to Reynald V. Gimena, assistant technical project coordinator of BFAR Caraga, the LGU-beneficiaries and some people’s organizations (POs) were identified based on the prioritization criteria on the availability of organized groups, associations, or cooperatives with sardines’ fishers and women as members, including the level of organization, availability of area for livelihood subproject, willingness to share subproject counterpart, and with no unliquidated funds from previous projects.
For this year, there are five identified fisheries and aquaculture livelihood projects to be prioritized such as the three projects on Milkfish Fry Production amounting to 700,000 bangus fry respectively; and two more projects on Bangus Production in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) cage units with a total cost of P1.7 million each.
Also, the first batch of the projects will be rolled out in the local government units of Nasipit, Buenavista, Cabadbaran City, Magallanes, and Tubay.
“I am happy that LGU Magallanes is one of the beneficiaries of FishCORE. If we solely rely on the LGU we can only do so much due to the limited resources but with FishCORE we can help more fisherfolk improve their quality of life. The fishers can now earn more even if it is the closed season of ‘tamban’ or the fish in sardines,” said Isagani Endencia, fisheries coordinator of LGU Magallanes.
He also disclosed that during the closed season of tamban which is the primary fish of the LGU, fisherfolk lose their source of income but with the livelihood project under FishCORE their fishers will be given alternative livelihood through the production of milkfish.
Julius Cuarenta Payot, a fisherfolk and president of the Barangay Caloc-an Small Scale Commercial Fisherfolk Association, expressed his gratitude to BFAR Caraga for the FishCoRE project. Through this initiative, the association will be provided with fish cages that could enhance the fishing practices and outcomes.
