Philippines - Costs and Returns Survey of Milkfish Production 2006

The survey covered fishpond operators in the top four (4) milkfish producing provinces in the country namely: Pangasinan, Bulacan, Iloilo and Capiz. The domain of the study was the province, with the last completed production cycle in 2006 as the reference period.

The lists of milkfish producing barangays by province prepared by the concerned BAS Provincial Operations Centers (POCs) were used as the sampling frame for this study. The lists contained data on the area devoted to milkfish production and number of milkfish pond operators by barangay as of 2006. These data were obtained from BAS-BFAR lists of aquafarms, updated Barangay Screening Survey (BSS) data, existing POC lists and the local government units.

A two-stage sampling design was employed with the barangay as the primary sampling unit and the fishpond operator as the secondary and ultimate sampling unit. The barangays were drawn using systematic sampling from an ordered list of barangays with at least five (5) milkfish pond operators. Systematic sampling was used so that both large and small farm operators in the province in terms of milkfish production would be represented in the sample. On the other hand, sample operators were identified using snowball approach during data collection. During the search for sample operators, a set of screening questions was applied to see to it that the samples satisfy the following criteria:

1. must be engaged in milkfish culture in fishpond, and
2. must have harvested milkfish in 2006

The total sample size was 100 fishpond operators per province, equally allocated to 20 sample barangays. Following was the distribution of sample fishpond operators by province.

Pangasinan (100) : All monoculture
Bulacan (100) : 69 monoculture and 31 polyculture
Capiz (99) : 94 monoculture and 5 polyculture
Iloilo (100) : 95 monoculture and 5 polyculture

All four provinces (399) : 358 monoculture and 41 polyculture

In Capiz, one sample did not satisfy the second survey criterion, i.e. there was no reported production.

The data attached in the Data Set include only monoculture.


Response rate of 99.8 percent


Weighting is not applicable