Fisheries Situation Report, January to December 2020

Fisheries

In 2020, the total volume of fisheries production diminished by -0.3 percent. It was estimated at 4,403.71 thousand metric tons from its previous year’s output of 4,415.00 thousand metric tons. Among the fisheries subsectors, municipal fisheries and aquaculture recorded decreases in production while commercial fisheries exhibited improvement during the year.

Of the 20 major species, 15 species registered decrements in production. The decreases were primarily noted in seaweed (-2.1%), fimbriated sardines (tunsoy, -33.2%), tilapia (-5.2%), slipmouth (sapsap, -14.3%), and indian mackerel (alumahan, -10.8%).

On the other hand, species that displayed production uptrend were led by bali sardinella (tamban, 37.1%), roundscad (galunggong, 7.2%) and milkfish (bangus, 1.9%).

Commercial

Commercial fisheries total output was estimated at 978.17 thousand metric tons in 2020. It registered a 5.0 percent improvement from its record of 931.45 thousand metric tons in 2019. The subsector shared 22.2 percent to total fisheries production.

Municipal

Municipal fisheries recorded a slowdown in production by -2.1 percent in 2020. During the year, the subsector came up with an output of 1,101.54 thousand metric tons, from 1,125.22 thousand metric tons in 2019. Of this volume of production, 86.4 percent came from unloadings from marine municipal landing centers while the rest were caught from inland bodies of water. Municipal fisheries comprised 25.0 percent of the total fisheries production.

Aquaculture

Harvests from aquaculture farms was recorded at 2,324.00 thousand metric tons in 2020. The production was -1.5 percent less than the 2,358.33 thousand metric tons produced in the previous year. The subsector contributed 52.8 percent to the total fisheries production.