THE EDITOR – To encourage the consumption of fishery products, the Banyuwangi Regency Government held the Banyuwangi Fish Market Festival at Muncar Satellite Beach, Banyuwangi.
Acting Banyuwangi Regent Sugirah stated that the festival is an effort to strengthen Banyuwangi’s fisheries potential, especially around the Muncar’s abundant fisheries.
“Banyuwangi has one of the longest coastlines in Indonesia – it is the livelihood of coastal residents whose main occupation is fishing. With this, we hope to reactivate culinary tourism and economic potential in the fisheries sector in the Muncar area,” he said when opening the Fish Market Festival on Wednesday (20/11).
Sugirah highlighted that fish consumption in Banyuwangi reaches 120,000 tonnes a year. This figure is the third largest in East Java.
“This is very encouraging, and we need to continue to optimize it, considering the nutritional content of marine products which is good for health. We, who live in coastal areas, must be able to utilize this potential well,” he said.
For this reason, the regency government continues to spur the processing of fishery products. The hope is not only to increase the consumption of seafood with its various processed products, but also to increase the added value of the fisheries sector. In Banyuwangi, the Fish Market also provides various processed fish products such as anchovy peyek, fish crackers, pepes, pempek, and others.
“The regency government continues to hold training programmes, especially for fishermen’s wives, who are trained to process seafood so that the competitiveness of our seafood continues to increase,” Sugirah said.
The Fish Market also held an auction of fresh fish caught by fishermen at the TPI. There were various types of fish auctioned, ranging from tuna, lemuru, layur, kenyar to jumbo-sized yellowfin tuna.
On this occasion, UMKM Naik Kelas (MSME Upgrade) assistance was also given to the local Management and Marketers Group (Poklahsar).
Trisna Ningsih, Head of the Centre for Testing the Application of Marine and Fishery Products (BBP3KP), attended the event. She explained that the direction of Banyuwangi’s economic development, especially the fisheries sector, is in line with the priority programmes of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKP).
According to her, although fish consumption in Banyuwangi is high, it still needs to be balanced with adequate fisheries supply.
“I talked with Mr. Sugirah earlier. And we agree that there are several things that we have to do, including increasing the supply of fisheries, one of which is by increasing the number of FADs or supplies from the local area,” she explained.
