A RECENT announcement by the Department of Agriculture (DA) to import 60,000 metric tons of fish due to its projected supply shortfall of 119,000 metric tons from January to March is worrisome. The fishing industry may suffer the same fate as vegetable growers who saw their profits shrank because of smuggled imported farm products that flooded the local market.
Helping the local fishing industry grow and making it competitive should be the priority of the government over importation to address a projected shortage, if it wants to ensure a steady stream of fish supply in the country.
According to DA, it has signed the certificate of necessity to import or CNI so that government can set the date to open the application covering the new import volume for qualified importers, in accordance with its 2018 Fisheries Administrative Order 259 which sets the rules and regulations for the importation of frozen fish and aquatic products for wet markets during closed and off-fishing season. However, opening the country to imported fish and other marine products could spell disaster for 1.6 million Filipino fishers and industry workers.
The importation of any product, including fish, should be the last resort. What the country needs more is a program that sets a direction to the fishing industry. Let’s not settle on imports when there is a shortage of supply; we should, instead, bat for long-term solutions with certainty.
The latest decision to import fish is just a reflection of the poor state of the country’s fishing industry. The Philippines is the second largest archipelago in the world, we have a coastline that spans 36,289 kilometers making it the fifth longest in the world. We ranked 11th among the major producers of marine capture in the world, and yet the fishing sector only contributed 1.3 percent to the Gross Domestic Product and poverty incidence among fisherfolk remained high at 26.2 percent. These are clear indications that the government needs to do more for the sector that feeds us and ensure that it flourishes.
