Pangasius revival good for the country
By Zac B. Sarian
THE other day, we got a call from NEDA Sec. Romulo Neri, a good friend of long standing. He was interested to know more about the fast growing fish that we mentioned in one of our columns sometime back. Of course, we were delighted that Sec. Neri was intereested to know about the potentials of the Pangasius, the fast-growing fish that used to be produced by some local aquaculturists in the late 1980s and early 1990s but which was dropped by the growers because not much interest was shown by consumers.
Although the fish really tasted excellent, the growers could only sell their harvest at the Navotas and Bocaue fishports at R25 per kilo, according to Jojo Baldia who is now trying hard to revive interest in this fish. Baldia is an aquaculturist who is an expert in artificial spawning and larval rearing not only of Pangasius but also other species.
Well, Baldia is very confident that Pangasius could be developed into a major food fish in the Philippines. In fact, he says that a trader is importing no less than 210 tons of Pangasius from Vietnam monthly. He said these are sold to restaurants who list the fish in their menu as "Basa" or "Pangasius fish fillet."
Pangasius, a native of the Mekong Delta (Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam), is a major dollar earner for Vietnam. In fact, it was a major export to the US until the American catfish producers complained about it because the Pangasius was competing with the American channel catfish.
Aside from being served as fillet, the Pangasius makes a delectable broiled fish. We remember that in the early 1990s, Mrs. Soledad Agbayani of Console Farms used to sell a lot of broiled Pangasius at the Agri-Kapihan. We think that one of the reasons why Pangasius did not become popular with local housewives was because they are not familiar with the preparation and cooking of the fish. When Mrs. Agbayani was selling uncooked Pangasius, she could not sell a lot. Later, when she broiled the fish in tin foil and sold it ready to serve, it suddenly became a bestseller.
Mrs. Agbayani stopped growing the fish at that time because the fellow who was breeding it stopped producing fingerlings.
Now new interest is being revived. And we heard that Mrs. Agbayani is now going into the production of fingerlings not only for her own grow-out operation but also for sale to other interested growers.
By the way, the Pangasius became to be known popularly as Mekong kanduli here. It is the same species that is cultured in aquariums and is also known as Hammerhead shark. We remember our friend Jerry Manaog as keeping a big albino Pangasius in his aquarium in Pandi, Bulacan. He also raised some in his earthen ponds.
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