Blue Revolution in A Commodity Frontier

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Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. No. , 2015, pp. .
Blue Revolution in a Commodity Frontier:

Ecologies of Aquaculture and Agrarian
Change in Laguna Lake, Philippines
KRISTIAN SAGUIN
Aquaculture presents a radically different way of producing fish that aims to transcend the
limitations of capture fisheries but that in turn creates new forms of agrarian and ecological
transformations. Using the case of Laguna Lake, the paper probes how aquaculture
production and corresponding agrarian transformations are inextricably tied to dynamics in
capture fisheries in multiple ways. It emphasizes the fundamentally ecological nature of the
relations between aquaculture and capture fisheries through a discussion of three interre-
lated features of agrarian change: commodity widening through the production of a com-
modity frontier, aquaculture producer strategies of working with materiality of biophysical
nature, and the attendant consequences of these processes for agrarian configurations. By
examining the appropriation of nature in commodity frontiers and situating relations
between aquaculture and capture fisheries as historical-geographical moments in commodity
widening and deepening, the paper highlights the centrality of nature in agrarian change.
Keywords: aquaculture, capture fisheries, ecological agrarian question, commodity
frontier, Philippines
INTRODUCTION
Aquaculture as the blue counterpart to the Green Revolution in agriculture aims to alleviate
production stagnation and full stock exploitation in capture fisheries. Its adoption by produc-
ers for subsistence or for domestic and global markets has contributed to radical transforma-
tions in global South countries, including the Philippines, the worlds tenth biggest
aquaculture producer (FAO 2012). Aquaculture presents a different way of producing fish that
promises to transcend the spatial, technological and ecological limitations of the capture
fisheries sector.Yet, the former also transforms, relies on and undermines the latter, and creates
new socio-ecological configurations that in turn shape agrarian relations in host spaces. These
multiple relations between aquaculture and capture fisheries in the context of agrarian change
remain theoretically underexamined as interrelated processes.
Using the case of Laguna Lake, the paper fills this gap by probing the ecologies of
aquaculture production and agrarian transformations in a large body of water opened up by
the state as a commodity frontier, and traces how these processes are inextricably tied to
capture fisheries. In 1970, the Philippine state introduced aquaculture in Laguna Lake, the
Kristian Saguin, Department of Geography, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philip-
pines. E-mail: kcsaguin@up.edu.ph
I would like to thank Christian Brannstrom, Jake Soriano, Fiona Wilmot and the anonymous reviewers for
providing insightful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The Texas A&M University Dissertation
Writing Fellowship funded the writing stage of the dissertation on which portions of this paper are based.
2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd doi: 10.1111/joac.12114

2 Kristian Saguin
largest in the country, to help improve rural livelihoods and urban fish provisioning. It framed
capture fisheries as a sector in crisis that is incapable of meeting these goals. Four decades of
aquaculture production in Laguna Lake provide ample empirical material to examine aquacul-
tures history in relation to dynamics in capture fisheries, both in place-based agrarian trans-
formations (i.e. shifts in agrarian configurations in the lake) and world-historical agrarian
change (i.e. broader sectoral or system-wide shifts in agrarian spheres).
In Laguna Lake, the relations of aquaculture and capture fisheries have taken a variety of
forms that deserve further scrutiny. Aquaculture production diverged into two: large-scale
capitalist pen aquaculture and smaller-scale cage aquaculture that resembles petty commodity
production. Both are linked to capture fisheries in differing ways. On the one hand, deep-sea
marine capture fishing firms and urban entrepreneurs took advantage of the opportunities
created with the opening up of Laguna Lake by investing in large-scale fish pens in the lake.
On the other hand, lake fisherfolk adopted cage aquaculture, which differed considerably from
the production relations in traditional capture fisheries in the villages. These two shifts from
industrial deep-sea fisheries to pen aquaculture and from lake capture fisheries to cage
aquaculture provide two cuts to investigate aquaculture and capture fisheries relations. How
urban elites took advantage of the surpluses freed up by the state introduction of aquaculture
in the lake, and the resulting enclosures, boom-and-bust production and social unrest in the
early years of adoption reflect the contradictions inherent in the appropriation and exploita-
tion of such frontiers. Despite tremendous challenges in production, capitalist aquaculture,
non-capitalist aquaculture and capture fisheries continue to coexist side by side as a result of
their continuing reorganization of production.
I argue that these multiple relations between aquaculture and capture fisheries in agrarian
change are fundamentally ecological in nature. I therefore frame the discussion within the
ecological agrarian question, coined by Akram-Lodhi and Kay (2010, 269) to capture the
important but often overlooked and unarticulated place of nature in agrarian change (Moore
2008; Bernstein 2010; Eaton 2011; Sneddon and Fox 2012). I situate this engagement with
other attempts by social scientists to discuss aquaculture in terms of its interactions with
capture fisheries in topics such as food security and ecological contradictions (Naylor et al.
2000; Mansfield 2011; Clausen and Longo 2012; Longo et al. 2013; Natale et al. 2013; Belton
and Thilsted 2014), and to historically consider agrarian capitalist dynamics in capture fisher-
ies (Campling et al. 2012; Havice and Reed 2012) and in aquaculture (Hall 2004; Belton and
Little 2008; Bush and Marschke 2014). I seek to weave the disparate strands within this vast
literature by examining aquaculture capture fisheries relations as an ecological agrarian ques-
tion in three distinct but interrelated ways. This task follows the call of Boyd et al. (2001,
5678) to unpack the actual process of social and environmental change in nature-based
industries such as aquaculture, while relating these to specific industries, in specific places,
during specific historical periods as in the case of Laguna Lake.
First, I probe how transformations in aquaculture are a consequence of broader processes of
the production of commodity frontiers. I trace ecologies of agrarian change in two spatio-
temporal moments of capitalist expansion in agriculture: the opening up of commodity
frontiers or commodity widening, and the strategies of confronting nature in production as
part of commodity deepening (Smith 2007; Prudham 2009; Campling 2012). The production
of commodity frontiers is a process enacted through ecological revolutions wherein capital
appropriates ecological surpluses cheap labour, food, energy and inputs at a low cost by
mobilizing labour power and extra-human nature (Barney 2009; Moore 2010c, 2011b;
Campling 2012). Aquaculture is an example of an agricultural revolution that sets in motion
commodity widening in search of ways to offset the decreasing stocks and fishing grounds of
2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Aquaculture and Agrarian Change in Laguna Lake, Philippines 3
industrial fisheries by attempting to find new production frontiers (Clausen and Clark 2005;
Campling et al. 2012). This process is not without contradictions, as forms of aquaculture
expansion erode ecological surpluses and undermine the conditions of production in both
aquaculture and capture fisheries (Clausen and Clark 2005; Mansfield 2011; Clausen and
Longo 2012).
Second, I identify strategies of producers as they confront the changing ecologies of
aquaculture production distinct in characteristics and implications from production in capture
fisheries. These practices fit within narratives of commodity deepening in mature frontiers but
emphasize the consequences of continual production of new natures within and beyond the
lake. The Laguna Lake example shows the place of natures materiality in attempts to capital-
ize production in mature frontiers through socio-technical innovations, and demonstrates the
resulting changes in organization of production and agrarian relations.
Third, I illustrate how both processes of commodity widening and deepening fundamen-
tally transform agrarian trajectories in host spaces. In aquaculture, these spaces include areas
traditionally dependent on capture fisheries. Laguna Lake presents a case where capture fishers
shifted, even if partially and unevenly, to aquaculture livelihoods that became enmeshed in
various linkages with capitalist aquaculture. Focusing on aquaculture and its ties with capture
fisheries in agrarian change explores ecologies in capitalist agriculture as a process of both
exploitation and appropriation of human and extra-human nature.
The papers analysis draws on data from year-long (January to December 2012) ethno-
graphic fieldwork in two Laguna Lake villages, urban Manila and other sites along the fish
commodity chain, as well as on a review of state and scientific documents. I conducted
semi-structured interviews with 51 fish producers (pens, cages and fishers), and with interme-
diaries (traders and brokers in the Manila fish market) and state officials. I drew on these
interviews and participant observations to describe changes in social relations and to detail
ecologies of fish production.
In the next section, I flesh out the theoretical framework of the paper by situating Laguna
Lake aquaculture within processes of commodity widening and deepening strategies in pro-
duction. In the third section, I describe Laguna Lake aquaculture and the dual trajectories of
large-scale pen and small-scale cage aquaculture. In the fourth section, I discuss strategies of
producers working with three materialities of nature in aquaculture production in a large
body of water and their implications for agrarian relations. I conclude the paper with a
summary and a brief consideration of Laguna Lake futures.
AQUACULTURE CAPTURE FISHERIES RELATIONS AND

AGRARIAN CHANGE
Aquaculture differs from capture fisheries in property rights, the degree of control of produc-
tion and potentials for further growth. In contrast to capture fisheries, where fish are generally
a common resource until caught, property rights in aquaculture are clearly assigned to the
producer from seed to harvest stage. Aquaculture also involves closer control of the production
process, which enables further intensification. Its share of total global fish production will
increase to more than half in 2018 and its prospects for future global growth are brighter than
for capture fisheries (FAO 2012; Belton and Thilsted 2014).
Despite these differences, the development of aquaculture is inextricably tied to capture
fisheries: first, as a promised solution, substitute or support to declining wild fish stocks; and,
second, as a solution that transforms, relies on and undermines capture fisheries production
(Naylor et al. 2000; Clausen and Clark 2005; Mansfield 2011). These dynamics highlight

4 Kristian Saguin
aquaculture as an opportunity to produce in new places through new techniques, resulting in

novel contradictory outcomes in food markets and ecological sustainability. Some studies have
examined the competitive and complementary interactions in food prices between wild and
farmed fish (Norman-Lopez 2009; Natale et al. 2013), and their implications for food security
(Tacon and Metian 2013; Belton and Thilsted 2014; Belton et al. 2014). Others have also
assessed aquacultures ecological dependence on capture fisheries through the use of wild fish
stocks as fishmeal and fish oil inputs for the farming of carnivorous fish species (Naylor et al.
2000, 2009; Tacon and Metian 2008, 2009).
I contribute to theorizing aquaculture capture fisheries relations by underscoring the
ecological centrality of these relations in agrarian change in three interrelated ways: (1)
aquaculture as a commodity frontier for capitalist capture fisheries; (2) aquaculture as a site of
production strategies that enrol nature and aim to address the limitations of capture fisheries
production; and (3) aquaculture as vehicle of agrarian transformations in traditional capture
fisheries communities. While scholars have focused on one or more components of these
relations, I examine these features as various moments in the multiple and necessarily
ecological processes of agrarian change.
The relations between aquaculture and capture fisheries lend empirical and theoretical
support to the ecological agrarian question, which seeks to articulate the place of nature in
agrarian change. Akram-Lodhi and Kay noted how aspects of the agrarian question, or the
rural production process, agrarian accumulation and rural politics, are ecological and that the
political ecology of struggle and agrarian change shapes and is shaped by biophysical contra-
dictions in capitalism (Akram-Lodhi and Kay 2010, 26970). The development of capitalism
relies on its ability to geographically stretch and deepen the scope of the commodity form,
appropriating and exploiting non-commodified nature in the process (Moore 2008; Prudham
2009).
Moore (2008, 2010ac, 2011a,b) provided a holistic theorization of how commodity
stretching and deepening are two moments in the logic of capitalist development over the
longue dure. Eschewing Cartesian naturesociety binaries in favour of Smiths (2008) produc-
tion of nature, he argued that capitalism does not only have an ecological component but is,
instead, an ecological project (Moore 2010c, 2011b). From a world-historical perspective, he
traced how capital produces ecological regimes that enrol resources, historically producing
nature as it attempts to resolve crises of falling profits through inherently ecological spatio-
temporal fixes (Harvey 1993; Moore 2008). This involves two moments that accompany
surplus-producing ecological revolutions: the creation of commodity frontiers, or capitals
spatial expansion to reduce costs of inputs (commodity widening or the conquest of space,
characteristic of early frontiers); and the development of socio-technical innovations to inten-
sify capitalization (commodity deepening or the conquest of time, characteristic of estab-
lished or mature frontiers) (Moore 2011a). Making use of these free gifts of human and
extra-human nature increases labour productivity by keeping costs of inputs in system-wide
production down, thereby producing high relative ecological surpluses. These produce new,
historically variant natures by joining together the twin processes of productivity and
plunder or appropriation and exploitation, and by changing the fundamental organization of
socio-ecological relations (Moore 2011a,b). Capitalist development on a global scale is a
history of enrolling cheap labour, food, energy and inputs in reproducing ecological relations
at a minimal cost by creating ecological surpluses from human/extra-human nature through
continuous commodity widening and deepening (Moore 2010c, 2011a,b).
Commodity widening the spatial expansion of capital through frontiers seeks to
produce more commodities with less circulating capital or raw materials and more productive

labour by appropriating the free gifts of nature (Moore 2011b), with consequences for
socio-ecological relations in production (Moore 2011a). These free gifts include human labour
and biophysical nature that are autonomously reproduced beyond the circuit of capital.
Commodity widening involves spatially extending commodity relations and appropriating
these free gifts that capital does not itself (re)produce. These surpluses (and organization of
relations) are exhausted through increased capitalization and exploitation of conditions of
production, a tendency that is internal to capitalism (OConnor 1998; Weis 2010; Moore
2011a). Capital then continues to search for new frontiers beyond its reach and/or to deepen
the commodification process through innovations, enabling new ecological regimes, waves of
accumulation and historically specific natures.
As capture fisheries commodity frontier, aquaculture presents an opportunity to address
crises in industrial overexploitation in capture fisheries (Clausen and Clark 2005; Mansfield
2011) by providing new spaces for and new practices of producing fish. Some fishing firms
employ horizontal integration of aquaculture and capture fisheries to overcome spatial limits,
to spread risks and to enable greater control in fish production (Natale et al. 2013). This
strategy necessitates opening up or taking advantage of the creation of commodity frontiers
where aquaculture could be introduced in various production environments.
Global South states promote aquaculture as a means of producing more fish, improving
livelihoods and ensuring food security (Edwards 2000; Belton and Thilsted 2014). Even with
the shift in aquaculture rationalization from an earlier emphasis on generating foreign
exchange towards approaches that directly address small-scale producer poverty, the benefits of
many projects end up being captured by wealthy absentee urbanites or local elites (Toufique
and Gregory 2008; Adduci 2009; Belton and Little 2011). In several cases, capitalist aquacul-
ture firms co-opt or coexist with small-scale aquaculture producers in production or in
backward and forward linkages (Vandergeest et al. 1999; Goss et al. 2000; Ito 2002). The next
section shows a similar process in Laguna Lake, viewed through the lens of the historical-
geographical expansion of capitalist capture fishing firms taking advantage of the opening up
of the lake as a commodity frontier by appropriating free gifts of plankton and labour.
Socio-technical innovations in established production zones, on the other hand, intensify
capitalization as a result of competition to lessen labour requirements and costs while produc-
ing more commodities in less time (Moore 2011a). This process is parallel to and inseparable
from commodity widening, and it involves working with particular ecologies of production.
The MannDickinson (MD) thesis elaborates these dynamics by placing agricultures unique
dependence on natural conditions at the centre of the analysis of agrarian change (Mann and
Dickinson 1978; Mann 1990). The thesis argued that the coexistence of non-capitalist and
capitalist production in agriculture is partly a result of capitals encounters with various
natural obstacles that inhibit its further penetration in certain spheres of agriculture. Because
they are unattractive to capitalist intrusion, capitalist firms leave these spheres to peasant farms,
until capital is able to overcome these obstacles. These obstacles constrain the use of wage
labour in the countryside because of the non-identity of production time (relatively fixed
biological time) and labour time (when labour is deployed) in agricultural production. Capi-
talization of agriculture progresses quickest in those spheres where these times meet.
Refining the MD thesis, other scholars have highlighted the ways in which specific
materiality of nature (Castree 1995) enables capitalnature relations in commodity-deepening
and socio-technical innovations in nature-based industries (Goodman et al. 1987; Henderson
1999; Boyd et al. 2001; Kloppenburg 2004; Prudham 2005; Campling 2012). Their works
emphasize the materiality of nature towards a co-production view centred on labour, a view
that attempts to transcend the concept of nature as universal and external. Thus, nature is not

6 Kristian Saguin
a passive object acted upon by human agency or unproblematically appropriated in capitalist

expansion, but is central in history and in the logic of capitalism itself. Scholars varyingly pose
nature from bodily to biophysical as an obstacle, opportunity or surprise (Goodman et al.
1987; Benton 1989; Henderson 1999; Boyd et al. 2001; Kloppenburg 2004; Guthman 2011).
The production of nature approach extends the MD thesis and enriches the ecological
agrarian question by considering the metabolism of nature as intrinsic to the logic of all
production centred on labour, whether capitalist or non-capitalist (Smith 2008; Eaton 2011;
Ekers and Loftus 2013).
As a method of producing fish that seeks to transcend the limitations of capture fisheries,
aquaculture is a socio-technical innovation that continues to develop as a result of efforts to
exert greater control in production and of the need to intensify production to appropriate
more surpluses. Working with natures materiality produces particular ecologies as capitalist
aquaculture employs various strategies that range from improvements in production tech-
niques and changes in property rights to genetic improvements in the fish itself from
capitals formal to real subsumption of nature (Boyd et al. 2001). Production in areas such as
Laguna Lake continues to confront biophysical nature in ways different from capture fisheries
and agriculture based on land. While land is often considered immovable and fixed, water is
characterized by properties of fluidity and circulation, which have impacts not only on the
difficulty of commodifying water (Bakker 2004) but also on producing commodities from
bodies of water (Mansfield 2004; Campling 2012; Sneddon and Fox 2012). Water bodies can
serve as sinks for various effluents from surrounding activities, and waste by-products tend to
undermine the conditions necessary for sustained production.
Aquaculture impacts agrarian structures, including those of traditional capture fisheries, in
places where they develop. With its continued expansion, aquacultures transformation of rural
places remains the subject of much scholarly work, including its links with poverty, food
security and livelihood sustainability (Stevenson and Irz 2009; Belton and Little 2011; Pant
et al. 2014). Many have adopted a political-economic approach to situate aquaculture devel-
opment in broader agrarian processes and social relations, emphasizing issues of capital accu-
mulation, differentiation and politics (Vandergeest et al. 1999; Goss et al. 2000; Hall 2004;
Belton and Little 2008; Adduci 2009; Belton et al. 2011, 2012; Veuthey and Gerber 2012; Das
2014; Latorre 2014).
In terms of aquaculture capture fisheries interactions, several studies have documented the
socio-ecological conflicts and displacements in places where capture fisheries and aquaculture
production coexist (Adduci 2009; Nayak and Berkes 2010). For example, the conversion of
mangroves for coastal shrimp farming impacts small-scale fishery livelihoods, food security and
resource access (Kelly 1996; Stonich et al. 1997; Primavera 2006). The emergence of salmon
aquaculture has also resulted in conflicts and contentious socio-ecological connections with
wild salmon fisheries (Naylor et al. 2003; Ford and Myers 2008; Ertor and Ortega-Cerda
2015). How capture fishers take up aquaculture and the resulting transformations in agrarian
relations, however, remains empirically unexamined in the literature on aquaculture capture
fisheries interactions. In Laguna Lake, the shift from capture fisheries to small-scale aquacul-
ture not only involved radical changes in village relations but also new connections with
large-scale capitalist aquaculture. While previous studies have framed ecological transforma-
tions from the point of view of the exploitation of nature (e.g. ecological impacts of shrimp
and salmon farming on capture fisheries), this paper situates transformations in the context of
the appropriation of the free gifts of nature in commodity frontiers.
Laguna Lakes unique limnological characteristics and historical trajectories are in many
ways different from the much-discussed contexts of shrimp and salmon aquaculture. While

this case study may empirically inform issues in the relatively unexplored literature on inland
fisheries and aquaculture in water bodies (Belton and Little 2011), it also seeks to contribute
theoretically to understanding aquaculture in agrarian change by situating its multiple relations
with capture fisheries within commodity widening and deepening processes.
PRODUCING A COMMODITY FRONTIER THROUGH LAGUNA

LAKE AQUACULTURE
Laguna Lake aquaculture is an example of commodity widening that benefited groups who
took advantage of the opportunities created by the opening of a frontier. The state identified
the lake as a source of fish and water for an expanding megacity, and a sink for urban wastes
and excess floodwaters. Aquacultures subsequent history, however, illustrates fisherfolk liveli-
hood programme failures, elite capture by urban entrepreneurs and corporations, fisherfolk
displacement and social unrest, and socio-ecological changes in lake productivity.
Introducing Aquaculture: Opening up Laguna Lake

Whereas small-scale pond aquaculture predates Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, large-
scale aquaculture and aquaculture based in water bodies (i.e. pen and cage farming) have
relatively recent origins (Villaluz 1950; Beveridge 1984; Yap 1999). Laguna Lake (90,000
hectares; see Figure 1) hosted the first of these activities in 1970 after a series of feasibility
studies, and served as a testing ground for state introduction of aquaculture in bodies of water
elsewhere. The saline flux from Manila Bay via the Pasig River encourages natural plankton
production and helps promote high primary productivity, characteristics that enable aquacul-
ture production without heavy reliance on feeds (Rabanal et al. 1968; Delmendo and Gedney
1976).
Situated within a post-war Philippine state that emphasized the Green Revolution, export
agriculture and foreign borrowing as engines of economic growth, the Laguna Lake Develop-
ment Authority (LLDA) emerged in 1966 as a state body tasked to oversee the development
of the lakes resources through external assistance and scientifictechnological interventions
(LLDA 1966; Ofreneo 1980; Boyce 1993; Kelly 2000; Santos-Borja and Nepomuceno 2006).
Assessments by the LLDA and other agencies determined that low-value capture fisheries
production utilized only a meagre percentage of primary production in the lake, and that
naturally occurring plankton could be more efficiently converted to fish through aquaculture
(LLDA 1970, 1978). The state undertook various institutional and infrastructural interventions
from livelihood programmes to hydraulic control designed to produce a better environ-
ment for aquaculture and to maximize productivity in the lake for various other uses.
Large-scale pen and small-scale cage aquaculture have developed diverging trajectories in
the lake. The pens are operated by the large, well-capitalized urban entrepreneurs and firms
who have captured the benefits of state-led efforts to develop aquaculture. They employ
relatively permanent wage labour and produce fish exclusively for the market. Village petty
commodity producers, on the other hand, have engaged in cage production for both market
and own consumption. Due to the prohibitive costs of constructing pens (more than 20 times
that of cages), pen operators come from either the urban entrepreneurial class (individual
entrepreneurs, politicians, military and celebrities) or from industrial deep-sea fishing firms
based in Manila. Cage operations are usually operated by lake fisherfolk even as some enter
into partnership with city-based financiers. In 2010, the 410 registered pen operators occu-
pied 13 per cent of the total lake area, or an average of 28 hectares per pen. This is in contrast

8 Kristian Saguin
Figure 1 Laguna Lake and the surrounding areas
to the 0.60-hectare average of 2,920 cage operations, which occupy 2 per cent of the lake
area. In the case of pens, these averages can be misleading, because they are able to circumvent
state regulations and operate well beyond the delineated sizes (up to 1,000 hectares) by
creating several dummy corporations.
Aquaculture production followed boom-and-bust cycles, peaking in 1985 and nearly col-
lapsing in the mid-1990s before recovering in the early 2000s (Figure 2). Milkfish, tilapia and
bighead carp, all introduced species, are the most commonly produced crops. Both the pens
and the cages use limited to no supplemental artificial feeding, relying primarily on naturally
occurring plankton. Despite this condition, together they produced more than 60,000 metric
tons of fish in 2010. The pens have traditionally relied on the production of milkfish, but have
since cultured tilapia and bighead carp, all reared exclusively for sale in the market. Because of
naturally available plankton, pens are able to produce fish at a lower cost than those produced
in pond aquaculture, and therefore produce the cheapest fish sold in the urban markets
(Saguin 2014). The cages produce primarily tilapia, with some practicing tilapia bighead carp
polyculture for both grow-out (i.e. rearing fish to harvest size) and nursery (from fry to
fingerling for stocking elsewhere) production. In good seasons, fish can grow to marketable
size within 34 months from fingerling size, making two or three crops per year possible. In
poorer conditions, such as years without saltwater intrusion, these production times can
stretch to as much as 2 years.
Labour arrangements differ between pens and cages. Pen owners hire a caretaker or
administrator who is made in charge of daily production operations involving more than a

Figure 2 Laguna Lake fish production through aquaculture and capture fisheries, 19802010
100
90
80
70
in '000 MT
60
50 Aquaculture
40
30 Capture
Fisheries
20
10
0
Source: Bureau of Agricultural Statistics database, 2011; LLDA (1995); and NSCB (1999).
dozen migrant wage labourers for every 50 hectares. Often recruited from poorer central
Philippine regions, they are hired to do all-around work such as stocking pens, repairing nets
and fences, surveillance and other daily maintenance work. The aversion of local lake people
to working in the pens is primarily because of the low pay and of the fact that full-time pen
work leaves little room to engage in other livelihood opportunities. Pen operators, on the
other hand, view lake villagers as lazy and not amenable to the labour discipline in pens.
Migrants live in pen structures in the middle of the lake and can therefore devote their full
time and attention to pen work. Because cages are much smaller operations, household labour
is employed for daily tasks and maintenance, with hired labour required for tasks such as
replacement of nets and poles, and grading or harvesting of fingerlings.
Traditional capture fisheries production in the lake has declined significantly, dropping by
almost half during the initial aquaculture boom of the late 1970s. Pen sprawl followed this
boom until the mid-1980s, with pen structures occupying 35,000 hectares of the lake in 1983
(Delmendo and Rabanal 1982; LLDA 1995). The sprawl brought conflicts as pens encroached
on capture fishing grounds, occupied navigational lanes, ignored standards in stocking densities
and distances between structures, and the operators overfed their pens with redundant feeds
(Rivera 1987). Initially small-scale, the adoption of pen aquaculture became larger-scale with
the entry of urban entrepreneurs and deep-sea fishing firms, who took advantage of political
connections and institutional confusion in state regulation of lake aquaculture (Ofreneo 1980;
Cruz 1982; Jose 1994b; Santos-Borja and Nepomuceno 2006).
The lake conflicts, which intensified and became violent in the mid-1980s, were between
displaced fishers and armed pen guards, who respectively accused each other of extortion, and
sabotage or poaching. Since pens are costly investments that produce highly profitable fish,
many operators guard their structures vigilantly. Beginning in the 1980s, the hiring of armed
guards became a common practice to ward off poaching of fish and sabotage of nets by
fisherfolk displaced from their fishing grounds (Delmendo and Gedney 1976; Cruz 1982). The
pens made navigation difficult and costly for fishers, who had to manoeuvre around the
enclosures to reach a much-reduced fishing ground. Fisherfolk took action by forming an

10 Kristian Saguin
Figure 3 A timeline of key events in Laguna Lake aquaculture development, 196099
Start of capture
fisheries decline
LLDA created 1965
UNDP, USAID, ADB First experimental

and foreign-funded
lake studies
1970 pen
Continued fisheries
decline
Aquaculture research
station established
1975 Entry of Manila elites
(firms/entrepreneurs)
in pen aquaculture
Cooperative Development
Programme Village adoption of
1980 cage aquaculture
Hydraulic Control
Structure operational Peak pen sprawl and
violence
Producer protests vs. 1985 Bust in aquaculture

Hydraulic Control production
Structure
1990
Boom in aquaculture
production
Revised Zoning Plan Bust in aquaculture

enforced 1995 production
Aquaculture
production recovery
alliance, demanding action from the Ministry of Defence, and helping to demolish unregis-
tered pens (Cruz 1982). While violent conflicts have subsided, everyday forms of resistance
(Scott 1985) continue to the present time. As a response to the social unrest by displaced
fisherfolk, the LLDA proposed establishing zoning belts for aquaculture and capture fisheries
in 1983, which was enforced only in 1996 (LLDA 1977, 1983). The failure of the initial
zoning plan was due to strong opposition and the bargaining power of the pen producers and
their association (Jose 1994a).
State and science, embedded in a nascent global blue revolution, provided the impetus to
open up Laguna Lake as a frontier for fish and for other resource uses. This required
technologies to improve fish production by changing production techniques, fish natures and
lake environments, as well as new forms of institutional mechanisms in resource use and
access (Figure 3 provides a timeline). These caused transformations in the agrarian relations in
the lake.

From Industrial Deep-Sea Fishing to Large-Scale Lake Pen Aquaculture

The development of capitalist aquaculture in Laguna Lake needs to be situated within histori-
cal changes in industrial capture fisheries in the Philippines, a sector beset by stagnant
production, rising fuel costs and a constant search for new fishing frontiers (Barut and Santos
1997; Green et al. 2003). Figure 4 shows the rise of aquaculture production in the Philippines
vis--vis slow growth in capture fisheries, which includes both small-scale municipal and
large-scale industrial fisheries. Fishing firms based in Manilas wholesale fish market, through
which close to half a million metric tons of fish pass annually, are central to Philippine
industrial fisheries. These firms, with origins in the adjacent northern Metro Manila fishing
centres of Navotas and Malabon, exert oligopolistic control of various stages of the fish
commodity flows to Metro Manila from production (industrial deep-sea fisheries and large-
scale lake aquaculture) to exchange (fish market brokers). In 1992, the five largest fishing
firms accounted for 70 per cent of the capture fisheries haul in the fish market (Tiambeng
1992), and two thirds of the fish were handled by the eight largest brokers, which these firms
also owned.
These firms expanded from their origins, as the old elites of Malabon and Navotas, to take
advantage of changing fish economies. Both places were pioneers in fishpond aquaculture
production, which was traditionally a rural elite venture (Villaluz 1950). In Malabon, the
naturales (native elites) and the principalia political class favoured by the Spanish colonial
government shifted from tobacco and sugar refining in the nineteenth century to fishpond
aquaculture at the turn of the twentieth century, after taking over lands from friars during
American colonial rule (Magno 1993). Taking advantage of opportunities opened up by
Laguna Lake aquaculture in the 1970s and armed with prior aquaculture experience and
knowledge, several of the fishpond owners extended their investments to pen aquaculture in
Laguna Lake. As the first investors in the lake in the late 1970s, it was common for their pen
sizes to extend for hundreds of hectares due to their connections with politicians, and weak
Figure 4 Philippine aquaculture and capture fisheries (commercial and municipal) production,
19802012
3,000,000
2,500,000
Production in MT
2,000,000
1,500,000 Aquaculture
1,000,000 Capture
Fisheries
500,000
Source: Bureau of Agricultural Statistics database, 2013.

12 Kristian Saguin
and diffuse state regulation of lake aquaculture. A former pen operator, for example, remarked
that the biggest operator in the lake during the height of the pen sprawl was from Malabon
and was a crony of the president.
Navotas elite families, meanwhile, invested in industrial fishing ventures, taking over from
the Japanese who controlled Philippine commercial fisheries in the first half of the twentieth
century (Ofreneo 1980; Morgan and Staples 2006). Through technological transfer from and
joint ventures with Japanese firms, Navotas fishing firms expanded their operations between
the 1950s and 1970s (Ofreneo 1980; Spoehr 1984). The largest fishing corporation in the
Philippines started out with one Japanese deep-sea trawler in 1963, but has since diversified
into freshwater aquaculture, tuna fishing off Papua New Guinea (Havice and Reed 2012),
food processing and real estate. These deep-sea fishing firms continue to operate the largest
pens in Laguna Lake. Several interviews with lake producers, fish market actors and former
employees claim that these firms invested in lake aquaculture to supply the urban fish market
with freshwater fish to complement fluctuating marine fish volumes. The employment history
of a former employee in one of these firms reflects these changes. He worked for one of the
largest fishing corporations, first as an engineer on the fishing vessels during the companys
beginnings in the 1970s. He was then put in charge of the pen operations in Laguna Lake at
the height of the pen sprawl in the early 1980s, when the firm sought to expand its
investment through freshwater aquaculture. In the 1990s, he was transferred to the wholesale
fish market, where he worked as the companys brokercaretaker, administering auctions and
managing landings of fish from both deep-sea fishing and lake aquaculture operations, until
his retirement in 2001.
Prior to the introduction of aquaculture, the Laguna Lake fisheries were primarily village-
based and small-scale. The production of Laguna Lake as a commodity frontier, however,
opened up opportunities for fishing corporations and entrepreneurs to spread the risks and
limitations of deep-sea fishing or fish pond culture while diversifying their sources of fish.
This fits with observations about aquaculture capture fisheries interactions, which show
how horizontal integration balances production fluctuations, provides diverse products and
addresses limits in one sector (Natale et al. 2013). Favourable political connections and weak
regulation combined with Laguna Lakes unique ecological characteristics allowed these early-
entry firms to appropriate the high ecological surplus (Moore 2011b) of a plankton-rich
production environment.
From Capture Fisheries to Small-Scale Cage Aquaculture in Lake Villages

If capitalist aquaculture in Laguna Lake has urban roots, small-scale cage production has
primarily been a village enterprise. Pen technology was originally intended for village
fisherfolk, but its cost and the rapid entry of well-capitalized urban actors made pen aquacul-
ture an elite venture. The state introduced fish cages, on the other hand, in part to quell
unrest and provide livelihoods to displaced fisherfolk. This section narrates agrarian transfor-
mations associated with cage aquaculture adoption through the example of one lake village.
Located on the north-central coast considered as the lakes fishery centre, the village of
Kalinawan engaged primarily in capture fisheries as a source of livelihood prior to the
introduction of cage aquaculture in 1980. Large fishing boats caught various kinds of indig-
enous fish and snails, and along with smaller fishing boats, provided villagers with a means of
subsistence. These boats, owned by wealthier village households, employed a crew of more
than a dozen. With the advent of aquaculture and increased enforcement of the Fisheries
Code that banned fine mesh nets, some of these boats were converted for ancillary pen work.

Some became seiners for harvest-ready fish in pens, while others were used by traders for
hauling and transporting pen fish to landing ports. The adoption of small-scale cage aquacul-
ture in Kalinawan, however, required changes different from the institutional arrangements in
capture fisheries. A share tenancy system exists in the Laguna Lake fisheries, similar to other
marine fishery institutions (Spoehr 1984; Carnaje 2007) and the kasama system in rice
farming in the Philippines (Ofreneo 1980; Takahashi and Fegan 1983; Aguilar 1989).
Wealthier villagers own the boat and/or nets, and village-based crews are share tenants. Crews
recruited based on kinship and patronage ties are more or less stable, and members share half
of the net profit.
The village adopted cage aquaculture as a result of the extension efforts of LLDA and a
nearby aquaculture research station to disseminate tilapia seeds and breeders. Kalinawan villag-
ers embraced aquaculture more fully (95% of households) than neighbouring villages for
various reasons: locational advantages, more concentrated pre-aquaculture wealth distribution,
an initially active cooperative established by a state programme and personal ties of villagers
with research station staff. The rural cooperative in the village served as the initial vehicle of
aquaculture technological and knowledge transfer. Kalinawan became known as the one of
fingerling centres of Laguna Lake, supplying newly hatched tilapia and bighead carp to pens
and other cages throughout the lake. Villagers often point to large houses as proof that cage
nurseries have brought certain households more prosperity. Stories of villagers who worked in
wage labour in the city only to return to the village for aquaculture are common.
Cage aquaculture in Kalinawan involved a radical reworking of ownership and production
that was distinct from the share tenancy system that prevailed in capture fisheries. For the first
time, many producers were able to own their means of production, instead of relying on crew
work in fishing operations owned by a few households. The de-concentration of ownership
to several households in the village also increased the predominance of fixed-wage labour for
stay-in or all-around work in cages. Village relations shifted from group-based share tenancy
in capture fisheries to more individualized production in cages. The patronage relations
between a few boat owners and several fishing crew were transformed into relations between
several cage producers and wage or hired labourers. A few wealthier households who formerly
owned the large capture fisheries boats also engaged in the more capital-intensive and higher-
return bighead carp hatchery.
Despite the adoption of small-scale cage aquaculture and dispossession by large-scale pen
aquaculture, capture fisheries remain an important source of livelihood in other lake villages,
where estimates suggest that 35,000 households still primarily depend on the sector (Israel
2007). In the other village study site, household dependence is still at 65 per cent. Both
aquaculture and capture fisheries livelihoods are complexly linked with large-scale pens
through various interactions. Cage nurseries depend on seed demand from pens and the
incomes of village traders depend on strong pen harvests. Pen expansion did not completely
displace capture fisheries livelihoods because of fisherfolk resistance, state regulation and the
availability of migrant labourers from other regions. Following Moore, these relations of pen
with cage aquaculture and capture fisheries can be read as forms of indirect appropriation of
labour and nature in Laguna Lake. Cage aquaculture employs household and occasional wage
labour to produce cheap inputs for pens, while capture fishers (converted fishing boats)
provide specialized labour for tasks that pen labourers cannot perform. In this sense, pens
indirectly appropriate non-commodified labour and nature through the work of cage aqua-
culture producers and capture fishers.
The development of small-scale aquaculture in Kalinawan and other lake villages has
created new types of producers as a result of de-concentration of ownership from a few to

14 Kristian Saguin
several households. It has also led to stronger connections with pen production, and further
differentiation among villagers, ranging from highly capitalized bighead carp hatchery owners
to cage aquaculture producers and wage labourers. The upstream and downstream dependence
of cage nursery producers, village traders and fisherfolk harvesters on pen operations (seed
inputs, harvesting and ancillary pen work) has created a complex patchwork of agrarian
relations in the lake that are complicated by ecologies of production in working with variant
lake natures.
CONFRONTING AND APPROPRIATING NATURE IN PRODUCTION

The appropriation of the free gifts of labour and plankton involves confronting the complex
biophysical materiality of Laguna Lake. Aquaculture producers have continued to employ
various strategies to improve production and work with particular lake natures over the past
40 years, with varying degrees of success. These ecologies of production have involved the
introduction of new production techniques and methods of organization of production that
are unique to the conditions of aquaculture and that differ from and seek to improve on
capture fisheries. The Laguna Lake aquaculture is distinct, as one that relies on the natural
food that is abundant in the eutrophic lake, the peri-urban location of which highlights the
multiple conflicting productions of natures. Various materialities influence the possibility of
continuous production, the species reared, the timing of production tasks, the ability to
intensify production through increased stocking or feeds, the deployment of labour and
inter-producer relations. This section discusses these through three examples: saltwater intru-
sion, plankton abundance and fish as fugitive biological commodities.
Saltwater Intrusion
Producer interviews and scientific assessments attest to the importance in production of
seasonal incursion of saline water into Laguna Lake via the Pasig River. Occurring during the
dry months when the water level begins to fall below sea level, the circulating saltwater helps
to clear the turbid lake, thereby improving photosynthetic activity and increasing primary
productivity. This is usually followed by increased abundance of phytoplankton and zooplank-
ton in the lake, which then improves fish growth by providing food and reducing pathogenic
microorganisms (Palisoc 1988; Santiago 1990; Santos-Borja 1994). Saltwater intrusion is able
to speed up production time and allows a faster turnover whenever two or three crop cycles
in a year becomes possible. Following the MD thesis, the coincidence of shorter production
times and the deployment of labour may help explain why pen production was very profit-
able during the height of the pen sprawl in the 1980s, when saltwater intrusion was yet
unaffected by the saline backflow control of the hydraulic control structure constructed by
the state. However, saline incursion is not without contradictions, since the same flux poses
risks to fish health. Passing through the Pasig, a polluted river that cuts across Metro Manila,
flows of saline water are also accompanied by excessive nutrient fluxes that can cause sudden
fish kills (SOGREAH 1991; NSCB 1999).
The fluctuating production times associated with poor water conditions enable a host of
responses in production organization and relations in pens and cages. Supplemental feeds are
given to fish in the hope of speeding up their growth to marketable size. However, while they
can increase the live weight of fish, the costs of artificial feeds are high enough to make
continued reliance on them unattractive. Both cage and pen producers comment that the
benefits of faster growth of fish through supplemental feeding are countered by the high costs

of feeds. The provision of supplemental feeds also encounters another materiality of the lake
waters fluidity and the pen/cage structures fixity. Another response to fluctuating production
times is to stock fish species that grow better in poor water conditions. Pens shift from
milkfish monoculture to bighead carp mono/polyculture because operators have observed
that the latter grows better in turbid and less productive periods. Despite fetching much lower
prices in the urban market, bighead carp culture allows pens to circumvent the long produc-
tion time of milkfish. In pens, a long turnover due to poor water conditions entails more
work for hired caretakers and labourers.
Pen operators and fisherfolk organizations joined together to protest against the operation
of the hydraulic control structure, which they believed prevented the intrusion of saltwater
that was vital to the productivity of the lake fisheries. Their actions influenced state adminis-
trators to open the gates indefinitely in 1985, only 2 years after they started operating and 7
years after initial construction (Santos-Borja 1994). Despite the structure remaining open to
allow the flow of water from the river to the lake, producers still experience years without
saltwater intrusion. Producers and ecologists have proposed a few reasons. Water levels do not
subside low enough to below sea level, and siltation from agricultural, industrial and domestic
activities around the lake has caused a shallowing in parts of the lake, which prohibits
adequate seawater flux. Increased nutrient loading may have pushed the lake to a
hypereutrophic state such that saline intrusion has minimal impacts on primary productivity
(Zafaralla et al. 2005). These underscore the ecological contradictions of conflicting demands
on the lake and the multiple productions of lake natures by activities both within and outside
the lake, including aquaculture, urban municipal water extraction and production of wastes.
Plankton Reliance
The high-nutrient character of the lake enables higher primary productivity whenever the
turbid lake is cleared to allow more photosynthesis to take place. State-commissioned studies
have advocated the efficient utilization of the lakes eutrophic character through aquaculture.
This property has allowed pen operators to produce fish that are comparatively cheaper than
similar fish species produced in places where artificial feeds comprise a significant bulk of the
costs. Plankton abundance has been seen by pen operators as a way to profitably produce fish
by reducing costs of inputs and supplying fish at a cheaper price. In the case of milkfish,
producers in other areas, such as Pangasinan, Bulacan and Taal Lake, spend more than half of
their total costs on commercial feeds. As a result, the Laguna Lake pens can supply milkfish at
up to a 25 per cent lower price than those areas (Tan et al. 2010).
Dependence on plankton instead of commercial feeds, however, poses several problems in
production. It creates a high reliance on lake processes such as saltwater intrusion, increasing
operator vulnerability to fluctuating production times. Although reports have indicated that
pens produced two or three crops per year in the late 1970s, before the height of the pen
sprawl, various factors contributed to the decline in plankton abundance, making it almost
impossible to repeat this level of productivity (Richter 2001). Dependence also limits the
potential for intensification. Increasing the stocking densities of fish per unit area has contra-
dictory effects in that a pen operator might be able to grow more fish, but in doing so
increases the production time before the fish are ready for harvest (Richter 2001). Further-
more, intensification by supplementing feeds is not only economically unattractive, but also
leads to added nutrient inputs when feeds are not fully consumed by the fish. Additional
nutrient input in the lake may contribute to algae blooms that can cause mass fish mortalities
when these decay. It may also contribute to increased levels of eutrophication that can

16 Kristian Saguin
contradictorily reduce primary production (Tamayo-Zafaralla et al. 2002; Zafaralla et al.

2005). Waters capacity to circulate also implies that feeds do not necessarily stay within the
area for which they are intended, and it is common for neighbouring pens to benefit from
feeds distributed in another (Garcia and Medina 1987; Richter 2001).
Control of the market size of fish is also less predictable. This implies that fish cannot be
grown to larger sizes when compared with those fully fed on an artificial diet, imposing
constraints on the attractiveness of producing for the export market. In less productive years,
pens harvest even before the fish reach market size, to hasten the turnover cycle and limit
non-production time. The varying sizes of fish produced in the lake, including smaller ones,
find a market with poorer urban consumers (Saguin 2014). Fish also acquire an unpalatable
earthy off-taste whenever bluegreen algae blooms occur during the transition from the dry
to the wet season. This makes it almost impossible to sell the fish at the desired price, because
consumers are repelled by the taste of fish harvested during this period.
Pen and cage operators work with these materialities by adjusting the timing of harvests to
avoid the off-taste. The staggered harvesting in pens, however, enables them to adjust better to
the disruption in production time and the turnover of a new cycle of production than in
cages. More importantly, the dependence on lake plankton for fish food is at the centre of the
difficulty of large, capitalized pens to further intensify production through more inputs of
feeds or increasing stocking densities.
Fish as Fugitive Biological Commodities

Since fish can only be stocked at certain densities without raising mortality rates or affecting
overall production time, the tendency for pen operations is to expand in size. Taking advan-
tage of economies of scale, producers can cut down on costs of materials for construction and
operation, as well as on labour costs (Israel 2007; Tan et al. 2010). However, expansion of size
encounters problems with state regulations concerning the maximum allowable pen size. In
the absence of regulatory enforcement during the pen sprawl, expansion was only limited by
the financial capacity to construct more cages and employ more labourers. With more strin-
gent state zonation following the enforcement of the zoning plan, pens were able to circum-
vent the regulations through the establishment of several dummy corporations that allowed
them to rear fish in hundreds or thousands of hectares of lake space.
The pen size and the large scale of the operations make it difficult to monitor fish. Labour
deployment thus includes surveillance against escaping fish and poaching. This is done
through regular monitoring by pen labourers of the conditions of nets though visiting, the
construction of guardhouses where labourers are stationed, and nightly monitoring with the
use of searchlights. Poaching is a common occurrence for both pens and cages, due to both
the difficulty in surveillance of large parts of the pen and the ease with which poachers could
swim to the pens, cut holes in nets underwater and set gill nets to trap escaping fish.
Surveillance is a crucial component of labour in pens, and it occupies a significant amount
of labour time. Pens have organized various strategies of improving efficiency in surveillance,
which include management of labour spatially (distributing them throughout the pens) and
temporally (working in shifts throughout the 24 hours). The relative remoteness of pens and
the spatial non-contiguity of the labourers (i.e. distributed in various guardhouses) stress the
importance of trust relations between operators, caretakers and labourers. Absentee operators
rely on caretakers to manage the daily operations of the pen. The caretakers, meanwhile, need
to ensure that the labourers are performing their tasks and that they are not stealing (or
allowing others to steal) fish in the pens. This mirrors relations in land-based fishponds

elsewhere in the Philippines (Dannhaeuser 1986), but is complicated by the size and isolation
of operations.
Violence and conflicts have accompanied pen operations because of the scale of their
operations, their employment of armed guards and their limited, largely impersonal interaction
with surrounding fisherfolk villages. While cage producers have also experienced poaching, it
is viewed differently in light of the strength and character of the social relations within the
community. Nonetheless, surveillance is required for both pens and cages, especially close to
harvest time, when the fish are ready for the market. As with large pens, cage aquaculture
requires close monitoring and surveillance. The need for regular monitoring is tied to the
poor visibility of fish as fugitive commodities underwater and as a mobile resource fixed in
space.
Mobilizing Labour and Plankton: The Ecological Agrarian Question in Laguna Lake
Aquaculture, as an innovation that promises to transcend the ecological limitations of capture
fisheries production, confronts its own particular ecologies. If one follows the MD thesis, the
Laguna Lake aquaculture has plenty of natural obstacles to capital, including its extensive/
semi-intensive character and highly fluctuating production times. Opportunities to overcome
these obstacles by capitalist investment in other aspects of agriculture, such as seeds and feeds,
have been limited. The improved seeds used in the lake developed by public research institu-
tions (e.g. the GIFT strain of Nile tilapia) have contributed little to improving production
times if the water conditions are not optimal. The same is true for feeds, where efforts of
agribusinesses to create a feeds market have been limited by the artificial feeds ineffectiveness
in improving production times.
It appears that the materialities of Laguna Lake aquaculture make it unattractive to capital-
ists, and thus production could be left in the hands of petty commodity producers. Indeed,
intensification has been thwarted primarily by the lakes eutrophic character. However, despite
decades of state regulation, fluctuating limnological conditions and the undermining of their
own conditions of production, pen operations continue to produce much of the fish in the
lake, rather than leaving aquaculture to household cage production. Explanations from the
ecological agrarian question perspective may thus be framed in terms of strategies to continue
to mobilize abundant cheap labour and natural plankton.
The availability of migrant labour, paid very low wages, allows pen operations to remain
profitable in times of slow production. Payment through monthly wages that are often well
below the minimum, supplemented by a share of the harvest, enables flexibility on the part of
pen operators during extended production cycles due to poor water conditions. Also, follow-
ing Mann (1990), wage labour is more flexibly employed throughout the year to attempt to
match the materiality of the fluctuating biological production time of fish, given that labour-
ers work on all types of tasks in pens and the degree and nature of the work are adjusted
depending on the water conditions and the fish growth. Since the labourers live in pens in
the middle of the lake, they are always on call, as the work is a continuous process. The labour
patterns therefore overlap with (but are not determined by) the biophysical character and
timing of production (Das 2014).
Dependence on plankton, while a constraint in intensification, keeps production costs
down during times of good water conditions. It allows continued production of cheaper fish
sold in the urban market compared with those that use feeds. Also, some pen operators shift
their species of choice from milkfish to bighead carp to be able to reduce production time
and speed up turnover. Labour and plankton, combined with the political power of pen

18 Kristian Saguin
operators and increasing demand for cheaper fish in surrounding urban areas, have enabled
the continued existence of pen aquaculture. Strategies of tapping the free gifts of labour and
plankton, while not without their problems, have proved advantageous compared to aquacul-
ture elsewhere and to capture fisheries, even without further attempts to intensify or intro-
duce new techniques.
Cages, on the other hand, coexist with pens by producing a different species (e.g. tilapia)
that is destined for urban consumption in much lesser volumes. Fish in cages remain an
important source of food and serve as a bank in the water (Bene et al. 2009) during tough
times. Cage production is a relatively profitable livelihood option for village fisherfolk able to
overcome its barriers to entry. Cage production and capture fisheries are linked with pen
operations in various ways, suggesting the necessity of looking into the changing relations
between capitalist and non-capitalist agriculture in the history of the Laguna Lake aquacul-
ture. Thus, apart from plankton, cage producers labour power reproduced outside of capitalist
relations may be viewed as appropriated by capitalist agriculture in a manner parallel to that
of extra-human nature.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have examined the introduction and expansion of Laguna Lake aquaculture
from an ecological agrarian question perspective. I have approached the ecologies of agrarian
change in three ways: (1) commodity widening through the production of a commodity
frontier by appropriating labour and plankton; (2) producer strategies of working with the
materiality of biophysical nature; and (3) their consequences for agrarian structures and
relations in the lake. Following Moore, I have framed the development of Laguna Lake
aquaculture as a story of cheaply appropriating the ecological surplus in a state-produced
commodity frontier through the free gifts of human and extra-human nature. Similar to
contentions elsewhere by political economists of nature, I have described how pen and cage
aquaculture confront the complex materiality of lake nature (e.g. saltwater intrusion, plankton
reliance and fish as fugitive commodities) in differing ways as frontiers mature. The introduc-
tion of aquaculture and the subsequent reorganization of production have changed producer
relations in the lake villages.
The blue revolution as an agricultural revolution needs to be situated within broader
patterns in capture fisheries, both as a driver of expansion and innovation in fish production
and as a production system itself reconfigured by relations with aquaculture. The paper has
discussed the place of these relations in agrarian change and transformation, narrating them as
an ecological agrarian question within commodity widening and deepening. As a solution,
substitute or support to declining capture fisheries production, aquaculture continues to
transform, rely on and undermine capture fisheries economically and ecologically. Aquaculture
provides a spatial and sectoral frontier to industrial capture fisheries by enrolling new places,
practices and environments in fish production.
Aquaculture expansion and innovations continue to transform agrarian relations in host
spaces such as Laguna Lake, where capture fisherfolk have adopted small-scale cage aquacul-
ture. This partial and uneven shift in village production relations, framed as a process of
appropriation of nature, is an aquaculture capture fisheries interaction that deserves further
elaboration in the agrarian change literature. Village fish production has established various
forms of linkage with large-scale pen aquaculture, the sector that has benefited most from the
lakes opening as a frontier, through its political and economic influence. This coexistence of,
and the connections between, capitalist and non-capitalist fisheries in the lake illustrate the

dynamics of capitalist appropriation of non-commodified nature, which are also sectoral and
system-wide. For example, Laguna Lake aquacultures production of cheap fish may also be
viewed in terms of its role in lowering the costs of urban social reproduction.
Laguna Lake aquaculture continues to confront changing socio-ecological conditions. It
has recovered from two near-busts in the past, but fish production still competes and con-
flicts with other existing or proposed uses of the lake. With an increasing technical feasibility
of treating saline lake water for urban domestic use, Laguna Lake has become an attractive
resource for urban water concessionaires. Lake producers fear the permanent prevention of
saline incursion, which has potentially devastating consequences for fish production.
Continued industrial and urban expansion benefits from the lake as a sink for wastes and
urban runoff, but transfers risks to fish-based livelihoods. These suggest the importance of
pursuing further understandings of variant ecologies in agrarian change, and the multiple,
often conflicting, productions of nature as new frontiers are continually created. Doing so
would examine the complementary and conflicting processes of appropriation and exploi-
tation of human/extra-human nature in commodity widening and deepening. As this paper
has shown, situating relations between aquaculture and capture fisheries as historical-
geographical moments in these processes helps to highlight the centrality of nature in
agrarian change.
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Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. No. , 2015, pp. .

Blue Revolution in a Commodity Frontier:

2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd doi: 10.1111/joac.12114

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AQUACULTURE CAPTURE FISHERIES RELATIONS AND

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aquaculture as an opportunity to produce in new places through new techniques, resulting in

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a passive object acted upon by human agency or unproblematically appropriated in capitalist

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PRODUCING A COMMODITY FRONTIER THROUGH LAGUNA

Introducing Aquaculture: Opening up Laguna Lake

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Figure 1 Laguna Lake and the surrounding areas

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Figure 3 A timeline of key events in Laguna Lake aquaculture development, 196099

UNDP, USAID, ADB First experimental

Producer protests vs. 1985 Bust in aquaculture

Revised Zoning Plan Bust in aquaculture

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From Industrial Deep-Sea Fishing to Large-Scale Lake Pen Aquaculture

Source: Bureau of Agricultural Statistics database, 2013.

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From Capture Fisheries to Small-Scale Cage Aquaculture in Lake Villages

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CONFRONTING AND APPROPRIATING NATURE IN PRODUCTION

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contradictorily reduce primary production (Tamayo-Zafaralla et al. 2002; Zafaralla et al.

Fish as Fugitive Biological Commodities

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