Agriculture - Davao Gulf Profile : DAVAO GULF MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

Crops. The 2002 data from the Regional Development Council recorded rice production at 440,152 MT or an average yield of 19.12 MT/ha while corn was at 181,947 MT or an average of 5.99 MT/ha.

The Davao Gulf holds the distinction of being the Philippines’ largest producer and exporter of Cavendish banana. It also produces a variety of fruit crops such as mango, durian, mangosteen, rambutan, mandarin, lansones, papaya, pineapple, calamansi, and watermelon. Table 1 shows the distribution of mango, banana, and coconut farms in the Davao Gulf. Root crops like camote and cassava are also grown within the region.

Fisheries. Four provinces and a major city share the fishery resources at Davao Gulf. Data from the DA-BFAR XI show that for the period 1998-2003, increases in the total annual landings of municipal fish catch were generally higher than commercial fish catch.

Fishing Gear. Table 3 presents a general classification of the different fishing gears, in their English and local names, encountered during the rapid assessment conducted by the UPVFI in 2000. At least 25 generic types of fishing gears such as spear, scoop net, pots, traps, cast net and seines have been identified.

Fishing Effort. A total of 9,032 municipal fishing crafts and 129 commercial fishing vessels were recorded in 2000 (UPVFI, 2000). These were manned by a complementary number of 11,839 municipal and 1,518 commercial fishermen. The commercial fishing fleet is primarily operating bag nets, ring nets and purse seines. Each vessel has an average of 12 men, about 96% of them employed as full-time fishermen.

Only about 45% of the municipal fishing crafts are motorized. The rest are sail or paddle-driven. Of the 11,839 municipal fishermen, about 70% were engaged full-time while 30% were on part-time basis.

Catch and Effort. The average catch per unit effort (CPUEs) of the various fishing gears are shown in Table 4 (UPVFI, 2000). As expected, the commercial fishing gears like the ring and bag nets had the highest average daily catch at 47.30 kg and 31.09 kg, respectively. Of the municipal gears used, the beach seines or baling, had the highest CPUE at 17 kg/day. Producing very low CPUEs are the squid/fish/crab pots and the hand spear or wiris.

Catch Composition. The ten most abundant species or groups caught by various hook and lines are presented in Table 5 (UPVFI, 2000). Designed to catch bigger fishes, the single hook and line landed a significant proportion of different tuna species. In contrast, the multiple hook and line as well as the bottom set long line were catching primarily small sized fish species. Squid jig and tuna long line have definite target species and they are likewise reflected in their catch composition.

Figure below shows the comparison of fish catch by the different fishing gears in 1995 and 2000. Catches by liftnet and encircling gillnet went down remarkably while those for tuna longline increased tremendously.