ILOILO CITY – The inter-governmental Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the opening of facilities for shrimp and milkfish technology.
THE Black Tiger Shrimp Broodstock Facility is one of the two facilities opened by the inter-governmental Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) in Tigbauan town, Iloilo province.  (Tara Yap) The Aquaculture Department (AQD) of SEAFDEC inaugurated the facilities for Black Tiger Shrimp Broodstock and Milkfish Larval Rearing at its headquarters in Tigbauan town, Iloilo province. While the technology transfer program can be implemented in any of the member-states, SEAFDEC-AQD chief Dan Baliao emphasized that the two new facilities are still mainly to boost the shrimp and milkfish industries of the Philippines. “These facilities can provide good-quality acqualture seeds to our fish farmers,” said Dr. Leobert dela Peña, head of the SEAFDEC-AQD Research Division. The Black Tiger Shrimp Broodstock Facility can primarily provide disease-free broodstocks of tiger shrimp, which is one of the more sought-after shrimp species that were in decline over the past several years. The facility has four separate 120-ton broodstock tanks that can produce 80 million post-larvae annually. On the other hand, the Milkfish Larval Rearing Facility has four separate 500-ton broodstock tanks. In total, the four tanks can produce 320 million eggs and 256 million larvae annually while the larval-rearing tanks and natural food tanks can produce 10.8 million to 18 million fish fry per year. Also present during the inauguration were Agriculture Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban, Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr., BFAR-6 Director Remia Aparri, and local officials.