Dr. Eden DLR. Bautista, ATI Region 6's Center Director, shows off the first tilapia harvest from "Atong Ugsaran."
In support of the “Plant, Plant, Plant Program” of the Department of Agriculture (DA), ATI Region 6 converts the former dumpsite into a pond for tilapia growing. It is located inside the Atong Ugsaran, which is an ATI Region 6's Urban Agriculture Garden that showcases different technologies on vegetables, herbs and spices, poultry and livestock forages, and inland fish farming.
Tilapia farming was included in the Center's Urban Garden because it is one of the staple food resources of the Filipinos and due to the pandemic, the supply is not enough to meet the demands. The Center would like to demonstrate low-cost tilapia farming using natural feeds such as Azolla and duckweeds for farmers to adopt the technologies in their fishponds.
The first harvest of tilapia from "Atong Ugsaran," ATI Region's Urban Garden area.
The fish were raised in the pond covered with plastic pond liner with a depth of one meter and fed daily during the morning and afternoon at one portion of the pond. Supplements feeds were used such as duckweeds and Azolla, grown in a separate pond inside the garden.
Raising Tilapia is low risk, this reason alone is a key factor to meet the requirements with regard to meeting the return on investment. Unlike milkfish or “Bangus”, Tilapia is good quality food and has firm delicious flesh. Additionally, it is suitable for processing dried, salted dried, or smoked products. Lastly, it is a good insect and worm predator and is known to help clean many injurious insects from ponds.
The fruit of success after all the struggles - harvest time.
Story by:
