Zamboanga City –It was Zamboangeños talents at its best as students join the city’s latest crusade: a dynamic sardine production in the Zamboanga Peninsula and better livelihood for its stakeholders.
With the Sardines FIESTA, the Western Mindanao State University (WMSU) gave importance to sardines as a source of livelihood and appealed to the community’s munificence for the sea and its resources, primarily sardines, with the help of the local government, other concerned government agencies, and even the private sector.
Themed “Sardinas: El mas Barato y Rico Protina Comida para di Juan,” the Sardines FIESTA hosted several contests such as culinary, photography, inter-school dance theater, poster making, slogan making, and quiz bee for both high school and elementary students.
The Sardines Festival is one of the several FIESTAs initiated by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) of the Department of Science and Technology under the Council’s Techno Mart Program.
Farming and Industries Encounters through the Science and Technology Agenda or FIESTA for brevity, is a modality that aims to bridge the farming sector and the micro, small, and medium scale industries through a science and technology-based platform.
Initiated by DOST-PCAARRD, FIESTA focuses on achieving a dynamic and participatory-oriented development in the agriculture, aquatic and natural resources sectors in support of DOST’s eight expected outcomes.
Foremost of these outcomes is Outcome One: Providing “science based know-how and tools that enable the agriculture sector to raise productivity to world class standards.”
PCAARRD is also currently supporting four projects on sardines. These include assessment of the sardine fisheries in Tawi-Tawi waters, molecular technology-based assessment of the sustainability of sardine fisheries, sardine supply chain, and impact assessment of the closed season for sardine fisheries.