Philippines To Build Tuna Quality Test Labff

The Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is allocating P3.5 million (US$62,792) for the construction of a laboratory for the quality testing of tuna.

BFAR Director Malcolm Sarmiento said the fund for the laboratory, which will be put up at General Santos port, will come from the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA), a government owned and controlled corporation tasked to promote the development of the fishing industry.

BFAR is focused in upgrading its port and processing facilities for tuna export at par with international food safety standards, he stressed.

Last Friday, Sarmiento signed a memorandum of agreement with Dole Philippines for the temporary use of the latter's laboratory by tuna producers for a minimum fee.

To be able to participate in the world market, he said Philippine products such as tuna must meet the strict quality standards of countries like Europe, Japan and the United States.

The EU wants to raise by 2006 the allowable maximum lead content on fish to a higher 0.02 parts per million (PPM) from the present 0.05 PPM.

”We have to follow what modern-day dictates and improve our facilities for food safety,” Sarmiento said.

Aside from putting up of a laboratory, he said BFAR is also conducting the upgrading of port facilities in General Santos to keep up with Europe. Among the usual cold storage requirement in Europe is the use of all stainless steel facilities.

Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Domingo Panganiban said EU expressed its interest to expand its tuna imports from the Philippines.

”There’s a big demand in the EU. Their representatives will be here in November to check on the improvement in our fish port,” he said.

Panganiban said there are already existing processes to ensure Philippine tuna exports will comply with EU’s lower lead content standards.

”Tuna is a migratory fish, and you can’t say the high lead content came from us. Tuna migrates from one country to another. It moves from the Celebes Sulawesi to the Mindanao Deep. What’s necessary is for us to bring it (lead content) down to a level, and exporters have the process to do that,” he said.

Panganiban lauded BFAR's immediate action on the problem of local tuna manufacturers by the MOA it signed with Dole and eventually putting up of its own laboratory to test quality standard of tuna produce.

The Philippines has eight tuna canners and exports tuna to Japan, US, and Europe.

Most of the country's tuna fishing fleets are based in General Santos City, which has been dubbed as the country's tuna capital. The recorded annual catch reaches about 400,000 metric tons (MT) valued at US$5 million.

The industry currently has 70 registered large purse seine fishing vessels, 250 small purseine vessels, 2,500 commercial handline fishing boats. An estimated 40,000 small fishing boats are also operating in the municipal waters.