Easter College hosts breeding site of Kaling
The declining population of the Kaling or Oriental Weather Loach in the Cordillera is alarming and this must be preserved and sustained. According to Google this is not a popular food in other Asian countries but more of an aquarium species, however, many villages in the Cordillera eat this rolled in flour and fried crisp or simply boiled in sabeng.
Easter College President Cleofe Kollin welcomed Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Aquaculturist II Judyline C. Toyoken and Arnold M. Noces Aquacultural Technologist to the existing pond at the back of the President’s Office. The water pond was the College’s resource that is ideal for the breeding of the almost extinct fish for study of students as proposed by Alumni President Dr. James Bayang.
Dr. Bayang said that this fish is being depleted in some rice fields in the interior farming communities of Mt. Province because of the use of fertilizers in the paddies. He noted that what used to be the simple ritual of cleaning rice fields and adjacent streams before planting rice is no longer practiced, the reason for the dwindling number of loaches that are part of the farmer’s rice planting practices.
Toyoken said that these loaches are part of the heirloom products of villages, aside from the rice. According to her, farmers prefer the hybrid rice varieties that are easier to plant in a shorter gestation period and are packaged with fertilizers. She said that the traditional heirloom rice is different from the lowland varieties, but the government agencies cannot dissuade the farmers who seek higher yields compared to traditional varieties. Perhaps they will realize that the rice and the fish are symbiotic, she said.
Taken from Sabangan, Mt. Province, Toyoken said the almost two kilos of loaches will take about eight months before they are big enough to eat and approximately two years before they are mature and able to breed. She said ideally, the kaling grows to finger size and about six inches long before they are ready for table fare, in another instance, they could grow to about eight inches long. Similar to the eel, these are a delicacy in most villages where they are found.
President Kollin said it would be a worthwhile project to breed the kaling in the campus because of the natural freshwater source that flows into the pond. With the help of the students who will put interest in the fishes, the school could become the source of the young fingerlings for breeding elsewhere apart from the availability of the fish for food.
The fingerlings costed BFAR some P1,500 and were transported in Styrofoam boxes from a farm in Sabangan that is known to farm and breed the loaches. As an heirloom product, the protection and propagation of the endemic loaches as well as the traditional rice varieties should be popularized before they disappear completely, said Toyoken. The joint project with the school is a welcome activity in making native students of the Cordillera aware of this inherited natural resource. Nonnette C. Bennett
