The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) generates statistics for freshwater municipal aquaculture and municipal inland fishing. Production of Quarterly Inland Municipal and Quarterly Aquaculture Surveys are conducted in sample aquaculture farms and sample inland fishing households. The respondents of the surveys are aquafarm operators, fishermen or other knowledgeable members of the household. Generated quarterly fisheries production is included in the quarterly data review process of the PSA at the provincial, regional and national levels. After the data validation, preliminary estimates are made available to data users.

The total fish production of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) registered a decrease by (4.3) percent from 4,096.3 metric tons (MT) in 2021 to 3,920.5 MT in 2022, contributed by both Inland and Aquaculture production. The provinces of Ifugao and Kalinga recorded negative trends.  However, fish production in the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, and Mountain Province registered production growth (Table 1).

Out of the 3,920.5 MT total regional fishery production 3,381.2 MT (86.2 percent) came from aquaculture and 539.3 MT (13.8 percent) came from inland fishery production (Table 2). 

Ifugao was consistently the top producer in 2022 with 2,175.5 MT, accounting for 55.5 percent of the total regional fishery production. Abra province came second with 17.9 percent share, followed by Kalinga with 12.8 percent, Benguet with 10.0 percent, and Apayao with 3.1 percent (Figure 1).

Mountain Province contributed the smallest share in the fishery production of the region with an output of 30.1 MT comprising only 0.8 percent of the total fish production in the region (Table 2).

MUNICIPAL INLAND PRODUCTION

Inland municipal fishing refers to fishing in inland waters like lakes, rivers, and dams. Using simple gears and fishing boats some of which are non-motorized with a capacity of less than three (3) gross tons or fishing not requiring the use of fishing boats.               .

Cordillera municipal inland fishing output in 2022 was 539.3 MT, comprising 13.8 percent of the total fishery production in the region (Table 3). 

Abra was top inland fishing province contributing 59.7 percent of the total inland fishery production of the region. It was followed by Kalinga with 20.9 percent share. Ifugao came third with 13.8 percent share while Benguet came fourth with 2.2 percent share. The provinces with the smallest shares were Mountain Province, and Apayao with 1.7 percent and 1.9 percent shares, respectively (Figure 2).

AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION

Aquaculture is a fishery operation involving all forms of raising and culturing of fish and other fishery species in fresh, brackish, and marine water areas.

In 2022, CAR registered an aquaculture production of 3,381.2 MT with an estimated area harvested of 674.6 hectares. Aquaculture dominated the region’s fisheries accounting for 86.2 percent of the total fish production (Table 4).

Ifugao province was the aquaculture fishery carrier of the region which posted the highest production with 2,100.9 MT from an area harvested of 157.6 hectares.  Abra was second with 378.5 MT with an area harvested of 298.8 hectares while Mountain Province had the least aquaculture production in the region with only 20.5 MT and an area harvested of 7.7 hectares (Table 4).

In terms of percentage distribution in aquaculture production in the region, Ifugao’s share was 62.1 percent.  Kalinga came second with 11.5 percent share. The shares of the other provinces to total aquaculture production of the region were 11.2 percent for both Benguet and Abra, 3.3 percent for Apayao, and 0.6 percent for Mountain Province (Figure 3).

(SGD)
ALDRIN FEDERICO R. BAHIT, JR.
(Chief Statistical Specialist)
Officer-in-Charge