Fisherfolks stocked about 3, 200 tilapia fingerlings to their 2-unit fish cages at the pilot production area in Lake Maba, Brgy. Cadayonan, Matungao, Lanao del Norte on April 22, 2014.

The said fisherfolks are the identified beneficiaries of the fishery sector of Community Development in Conflict Affected Areas in Mindanao (CD-CAAM) Project of the Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA) in partnership with Japan International Cooperative Agency (JICA) and ICNet Limited.

The activity is conducted after series of capacity training conducted for the beneficiaries under the program.

A 3-day hands-on and onsite training on tilapia cage construction was conducted on April 1-3, 2014. Resource persons from Mindanao State University (MSU)-Naawan have demonstrated the methodologies of constructing floating fish cages using bamboo poles, monofilament nylon and net cage.

The training likewise included significant topics on stocking, feeding, culture and management harvesting, costing, and marketing.

On April 21, 2014, the fishery sector Team of the project visited hatchery in Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in Lala, Lanao del Norte. The purpose of which is to learn the effective processes of tilapia fingerlings packing, transport and stocking.

According to Sheik Solaiman Maba, fisherman, “learnings from training really helped in improving our fishery production”. He related that he used to grow fishes in the lake but was not successful due to lack of technical capacities.

“I know of the benefits earned in the Lake that is why I worked hard in expanding the area to make use of the natural flow of water from the nearest river, but unfortunately, it failed due to lack of technical design and other requirements. No access to lending institutions for capital is also a challenge for us, similar to what the CD-CAAM is now extending to our community” said Sheik Solaiman.

Sheik Solaiman encouraged the participating community members to take the opportunity to learn all the technologies during training-workshop, study tours and exposure trips.

He was very happy to have chosen Lake Maba as pilot site for the project. He believed his community would benefit most in terms of livelihood and income generation.

Majority of the residents in the barangay are farmers and tenants working for the land-owners of vast coconut plantations in Matungao. With the introduction of fish cages in the community, the people are very optimistic towards improving their way of lives through fish production.

The CD-CAAM Project of BDA is aimed at providing capacity building for communities torn by conflict in Mindanao. It is being piloted in the municipalities of Lanao del Norte and Maguindanao. The project is being implemented in three (3) sectors such as agricultural sector, fishery sector and infrastructure. In agri sector, local farmers are trained on better vegetable farming. In fishery sector, beneficiaries are introduced with tilapia culture towards improved fishing production; while the infrastructure component had just polished with its implementation set-up.