Dirty Tricks to Avoid in Bangus (Milkfish) Farming

Dirty Tricks to Avoid in Bangus (Milkfish) Farming
 
Background

As in any business venture, bangus farming has its own set of risks and threats. If not addressed, they can lead to significant losses and reduced profits.

From our experience, the main threats or business risks in bangus farming are as follows:

1. From employees – The pond caretaker is a major success factor. He can make or break the farm business. A dishonest and predatory caretaker accounts for the major losses incurred (through theft) in fish farming and may cause its eventual failure.

2. From improper farming techniques, poor pond preparation, lack of pond monitoring – Of these, the risk of “tangok” (fish kill due to depletion of dissolved oxygen in pond waters) is paramount. For details, see my blogpost on this subject.

3. From nature – such as floods and droughts that can bring about large-scale losses of the fish stock, if not anticipated.

4. From economic factors – such as low selling prices, flooding of market by large supply of low quality bangus (during fish kill or widespread “tangok”). Bangus prices are determined by market forces. 

Pond operators who sell their harvest at the fish center have no choice but to follow prevailing prices at the time of sale. If the timing is wrong and selling price is unusually low, profits can suffer.

Dirty Tricks Employed by Caretakers/Other Pond Workers
 
Following are the various ways by which a dishonest pond caretaker can undermine profits.


A dishonest pond caretaker

1. Steal big-sized bangus and cover it up with small ones

This is a most common technique adopted by a dishonest caretaker. How does he do it? He stealthily harvests most of the market-sized bangus using gill nets ("lambat" or "tabal") and replaces them with fingerlings.

Aware that the operator keeps tab of the quantity stocked, the caretaker makes sure to replace the big ones with the same number of juveniles or fingerlings (small young bangus). 

At harvest time, the same number of bangus will be taken out – no shortfall in quantity. But owner’s suspicions will be raised regarding the unusually small size, despite the 3,4,5 months rearing period.

For example, with quantity stocked at 5,000 pieces, the cunning caretaker retains 1,000 market-sized bangus, with the rest (around 4,000 pcs.) replaced by fingerlings. As alibi, the caretaker alleges stunted growth. Excuses given - poor fry/fingerling quality, inadequate food, poor water condition, presence of pond weeds, erratic weather, "tangok", etc.

This kind of theft becomes much easier to pull off when the fish farm also includes a nursery pond to grow fingerlings from fry. The caretaker can then conveniently but furtively transfer fingerlings from the nursery to the grow-out pond to cover the quantity stolen.

2. Steal bangus using gill nets ("tabal") without replacement - by caretaker

Usually occurs at night or wee hours of morning. Easy to execute when pond owner-operator does not live in the pond and pond is relatively isolated. No potential witnesses. No neighbors. Caretaker and his entire family members usually conspire to carry out this kind of theft. 

Veteran pond workers say that it’s possible to take out 1,000 pieces of adult bangus using gill net in an hour, especially in the feeding area. Loss is later detected only during harvest and explained as part of normal mortality, presence of predator fish (such as mudfish), or due to attacks of birds.

A sample of gill net ("tabal") in one of my ponds. I have 3 sets for my farm's exclusive use. 

3. Steal bangus using gill nets ("tabal") or trap cage ("nasa") - by an outsider
 
Takes place in an isolated hidden part of a pond. May happen during the day. The thief hides himself behind tall grass or trunk of a big tree. He carries stock of floating feeds hidden among a grassy portion of a neighboring pond. When no one is looking, he casts the feeds in the target area to attract bangus. After the bangus go after the bait, the gill net will do the rest.

This usually happens when (a) pond dikes are not well-maintained (presence of tall weeds; small dike trees such as ipil-ipil are not cut and can serve as hiding place) or (b) caretaker is lazy and does not do regular inspection rounds of all dikes, nor visit the remotest part of the farm or (c) there is no surveillance system (such as CCTV cameras) to detect intruders (almost all fish farmers don't have this).

A variation of the above is the theft of bangus using a trap cage ("nasa") with or without a pull string. In using this device, a poacher places a bait inside the trap cage (unseen because it's underwater), which lures and traps the fish inside the cage.

4. Do large-scale poaching using seine net ("kalokor") - by outsiders

Usually done at night during very heavy storm where chief perpetrator can be a rapacious neighbor who keeps a pond beside or near the victimized pond. It would be easy to just haul in the seine net with the catch and merely transfer the net into the next pond, especially if the caretaker is distracted or lulled to sleep by the severe storm. Involves three or four persons.

Actual case involved a nursery pond teeming with fingerlings. These were stolen at night in the middle of a strong typhoon using a small seine net and transferred to the next pond operated by the thieving neighbor himself.

5. Do wholesale theft of market-sized bangus in temporarily abandoned pond

Perpetrator was a dismissed caretaker who succeeded in terrorizing the new one. Owner-operator was out of town. Out of fear, new caretaker and children temporarily vacated the farm house, thus leaving the entire fish farm unmanned. 

With no one to watch the farm, old caretaker and his cohorts took out a few thousand market-sized bangus using seine net. These were loaded in two tricycles. Unknown to them, a neighbor saw the entire incident and recognized the thieving caretaker.

6. Hide and steal fish during harvest – through collusion between caretaker and harvest crew

This modus operandi was adopted in several incidents, and was detected only when the conspiring harvest crew blew the whistle on the dishonest caretaker. This is how it’s done.

During harvest, caretaker takes with him an empty sack or two. He joins the “kalokor” work. During two rounds of seining, no theft occurs because the owner and other pond workers watch the actual harvest. Meanwhile, after each round, the catch is transferred from the "kalokor" to a "saplar" (sorting) net. The "saplar" net is hauled in water to the processing area beside the farm house.

At this time the owner and his other staff leave the pond and go to the processing area. They supervise the hauling of the fish from the "saplar" sorting net to the fish killing area, application of ice, and pre-chilling of fish.

Meanwhile, during the third and fourth round of seining, the caretaker and conspiring crew fill up hidden empty sacks with big bangus and tilapia from the seine net, then bury the sacks underwater. The harvest crew, all willing conspirators, help the caretaker perpetrate the crime, unseen by any watcher.

When the owner and caretaker leave the farm to sell the catch, the conspiring harvest crew retrieve the sacks of stolen fish from the pond. Together with the sack containing the seine net, they smuggle out the stolen fish hidden in sacks. All done surreptitiously with no one seeing anything amiss. The thieving caretaker is sure he can’t be accused of wrongdoing since he was with the owner selling bangus.

7. Divert fish catch during harvest – by caretaker

This is a variation of Item 6 above.

After harvested bangus are killed in ice, they are counted, put in sacks (150 to 200 pieces each depending on size) at the processing area. Harvest crew then carries each filled sack to the shipment area for loading into waiting transport vehicles.

Theft occurs when the caretaker himself diverts one or two sacks to another place – not to the shipment area. He patiently waits for the owner-operator to leave the processing area and for other trusted staff to get ready to go to the market. With no one looking, caretaker quickly takes the stolen sacks to an accomplish waiting in a nearby dike.

8. Divert and hide sacks containing bangus - by harvest crew
 
This is a further variation of Item 7 above. 

Actual perpetrator(s) are harvest crew members and not the caretaker. In carrying the filled sacks to the shipment area, a conspiring worker diverts sacks full of fish to some hiding place (behind a mango tree, among the tall weeds, at the back of the storeroom, etc.).

While the filled sacks can be seen by the owner-operator being carried from the harvest area, in reality some of these sacks don’t reach the shipping area at all. Result – not all the harvested bangus get to be loaded into transport vehicles and sold at the Dagupan fish center. 

A few sacks of fish get physically diverted, hidden, and later retrieved by thieving harvest worker(s) (in cahoots with the dishonest caretaker), when harvested fish are brought to the fish center.

9. Steal white prawns - by gill net (tabal) workers

After harvesting bangus using the traditional seine net ("kalokor"), the bangus pond operator often employs gill nets ("tabal" in Pangasinense or "lambat" in Tagalog) to trap most remaining bangus, tilapia, and vannamei (white prawns). 

“Tabal” work takes one to two days. “Tabal” workers bring their own nets or rent some (at P50 per "tabal" net). The work involves using one “tabal” net or as many as six nets. Usually “tabal” nets are static gears, i.e., they are installed in fixed location(s), usually along the sides of the pond. However, when using only one, the “tabal” net is hauled by two workers along the length of the pond from end to end.

During “tabal” work, dishonest workers usually steal white prawns simply because they are smaller but command a much higher price (P350 to 500/kilo) compared to either bangus or tilapia (P90 and P40/kilo respectively).

Unscrupulous workers often declare all the tilapia and bangus caught by the “tabal” net, but steal the bulk of white prawns. How is this done?

Most “tabal” work is done at night and workers are usually left alone by owner/operator.
 
To hide the theft, workers present a few pieces of vannamei (2 or 3 pieces) together with the tilapia and bangus, saying that no more vannameis (white prawns) were left. But in reality, gill net workers would have netted 3 to 4 kilos or more of the expensive white prawns.

Bangus and tilapia caught in the net are all removed. But the bulk of the prawns are not and instead retained in the net. A variation of the theft is to use a hidden empty sack or plastic bag, put the stolen prawns inside, and temporarily bury the sack or bag underwater. The sack or bag is retrieved later and taken out of the pond together with the gill nets.

Rented gill nets used in the harvest are stored in jute sacks. After using them, the workers put the nets back again in the sacks. Thus stolen prawns still attached to the nets are taken out undetected inside the sacks, to be untangled later.

10. Other gillnet sales anomalies

When fish or prawns are caught using gill nets, the pond owner sometimes completely leave the workers alone during the "tabal" work, and rely on them to sell the catch in the market by themselves. 

Although sale is not much, loss of revenue can still occur through underweighing, understatement of selling price, loss of receipt, substitution of receipt, nonreporting of soft-shelled prawns, etc.

11. Pilfer feeds and other supplies

A sack of commercial feeds for bangus is bought at P650 to 700 per piece depending on brand. A pond operator usually stocks a large number of feeds in his storage area. A thieving caretaker or employee can pilfer some of the sacks and sell them at a much reduced price to other fish operators nearby.

This is possible if the operator does not keep a record of kilos fed daily per pond and does not check his feeds inventory levels and merely relies on his caretaker.
 
12. Overprice bangus fry or fingerlings purchased from suppliers

An operator who is new to the business can sometimes buy his starting bangus stock (fry or fingerling) at a jacked-up price. Being new, he often relies on his more seasoned caretaker to source supply, negotiate, and close deals with suppliers and/or agents. 

Often the caretaker acts as a sub-agent without the owner’s consent or knowledge. As a result instead of buying bangus fry or fingerlings at the prevailing price, the inexperienced operator pays extra. The caretaker pockets the difference and gets away with it. His justification - prices are variable – sometimes high, sometimes low.

13. Accept short delivery of supplies

Profits in bangus farming can suffer through lack of controls in the delivery and receipt of purchased supplies. Examples are purchase of “lumut” (filamentous algae) used as natural feeds for bangus instead of commercial pelletized feeds. Lumut is usually bought in “garong” (tricycle with box or container side car) or in some few cases in sacks or large wicker baskets (“tiklis”). 

The seller or supplier can sometimes make it appear that the container, sack or basket is full, but is actually hollow inside, resulting in short delivery of the correct quantity of “lumut”. Here, role of caretaker is crucial since he’s the one who checks the goods received.

Same is true with sacks of chicken manure. Although number of sacks delivered is correct, the content is only half chicken manure – the other half is rice hull, mixed with the manure. A natural pesticide such as tobacco dust can sometimes be corrupted by mixing it with lumber saw dust.

If supplies are delivered and counted by number of sacks (in case of lumut, tobacco dust, chicken manure, or stale bread), short delivery can occur even when the number of sacks is correct. Why? Small sized sacks are used instead of the regular ones.

Chicken manure delivered in small sized sacks. My farm overseer noticed and called the supplier's attention. The supplier relented and gave additional 6 sacks free.

For a complete list of Fish Pond Buddy blog posts on fish farm-related topics, please click the Index page.