DAVAO CITY —- Fifty thousand (50,000) tons of Tilapia estimated to cost six million (P6M) were damaged due to fish kills in the town of Lake Sebu, South Cotabato from April 9 to 15 this year.
Lake Sebu is one of the major suppliers of Tilapia for Southern Mindanao, it has two lakes with more than 8,000 fish cases.
The incident affected 800 fish cages involving 50 farmers.
Muyco explained that water runoff from upland farmers who are into rice, corn and vegetable growing who commercial fertilizers, pesticides and fungicide directly goes to the lake.
Lake Sebu Lake Warden Jose Rudy Muyco told Newsline “Last year he experienced fish kill on January and this year this month after the the storm Agaton.”
Muyco residues of fertilizers and fungicide from upland farmers surrounding the lake as among the reasons “The vegetable, Corn and Rice farmers are using fertilizers and the residues goes down to the lake.” He also cited intermittent weather condition, suffocation, water pollution, diseases, toxic algae among others.
But he stressed the supply of Tilapia in the market is not affected as only about 800 of the more than 8,000 fish cages were affected.-ezc
