Published March 8, 2021, 1:36 PM
The aquaculture sector is ready to file a petition opposing more fish importation should the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) will push for its plan to ease import policy on agricultural commodities, especially fisheries products.
Asis Perez, convenor of food security advocacy group Tugon Kabuhayan, said in a briefing on Monday that NEDA’s proposal is “problematic” and may result in a long-term problem for the country’s aquaculture players, which supplied 53 percent of the country’s total fisheries production in 2020.
“The problem in the country’s fisheries sector is not a question of availability but the issue of logistical system. If that [eased fish importation] happens, remember what it will do to our market and what it will do to our producers. Producers will have more problems and they may eventually stop investing,” Perez, who also serves as former Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) director, said.