The overall fisheries production in the Ilocos Region was posted at 194,114.19 metric tons in 2022. This output improved by 2.56 percent over the 2021 production of 189,260.45 metric tons.

Ilocos Sur and Pangasinan posted increased production by 3.47 percent and 4.91 percent, respectively. On the other hand, both Ilocos Norte and 
La Union registered decreases in fisheries production by 21.48 percent and 13.79, respectively.

In terms of provincial shares, Pangasinan accounted for 87.26 percent of the region’s fisheries volume of production, followed by La Union with 6.69 percent share. Meanwhile, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte contributed 3.72 percent and 2.32 percent, respectively.

By subsector, both the aquaculture and commercial fisheries sectors posted improvement in production in 2022. Commercial fisheries posted an 8.88 percent increase from 4.37 thousand metric tons in 2021 to 4.76 thousand metric tons in 2022. Similarly, aquaculture’s production climbed to 162.78 thousand metric tons from 156.12 thousand metric tons, which translates to a 4.27 percent increase. On the other hand, inland municipal fisheries registered a decrease of 11.47 percent from the 3.17 thousand metric tons output in 2021, while marine municipal fisheries registered a decline of 7.15 percent from the 25.60 thousand metric tons output in 2021.

Among the four subsectors, aquaculture contributed the most to the fisheries production in 2022, covering 83.86 percent. This was followed by marine and commercial fisheries with a share of 12.25 and 2.45 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, 1.44 percent of the region’s fish production was from inland fisheries.

Fisheries Production by Province

Ilocos Norte is the sole province in Ilocos Region without commercial fishery sector. All subsectors posted reduction in production, wherein inland municipal fisheries had the highest drop of 31.20 percent.

Most of the fisheries output of the province were from the marine municipal fisheries with a share of 86.14 percent, followed by aquaculture fisheries of 10.90 percent. Inland fisheries had the least share at 2.96 percent.

The volume of production in marine municipal and aquaculture fisheries of Ilocos Sur increased in 2022 by 11.00 percent. On the other hand, inland municipal and commercial fisheries have decreases of 19.91 and 43.56 percent, respectively.

In terms of share, marine municipal fisheries contributed 74.85 percent to the provincial output. This was followed by aquaculture of 14.53 percent, inland municipal by 7.94 percent, and commercial fisheries by 2.48 percent.

Marine municipal, inland municipal, and commercial fisheries constituted to the decline in the overall fishery production in La Union. The three fisheries sectors had at least 30 percent decline in production. However, aquaculture production grew by 9.97 percent from 6.98 thousand metric tons in 2021 to 7.68 thousand metric tons in 2022.

In terms of share, the aquaculture fisheries sector, constituted 59.08 percent of the province’s total output in 2022. Marine municipal, commercial and inland municipal fisheries sectors covered 32.19 percent, 5.22 percent, and 3.51 percent, respectively.

All the fisheries subsectors in Pangasinan had increases in production in 2022. Commercial fisheries had the highest percent increase of 43.93 percent, while the rest increased with at most 8 percent.

Aquaculture fisheries dominated the province’s overall fisheries production. About 90.66 percent or 153.56 thousand metric tons was contributed by aquaculture, while the remaining subsectors had less than 10 percent to the overall province’s output.

SGD. ATTY. SHEILA O. DE GUZMAN
Regional Director, RSSO I