Mighty Corporation Helps Thousands of Fish Pond Owners and Tobacco Farmers

Local cigarette manufacturer Mighty Corporation or Mighty Corp donates tobacco dust, a known fish pond conditioner that protects local ponds from predators, to Filipino fish pond owners and operators and help as well tobacco farmers all over the Philippines.

Mighty Corp executive vice president Oscar Barrientos said that they are helping the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) to promote the use of tobacco dust by donating to our thousands of fish pond owners. In doing so, the Filipino-owned cigarette manufacturing company are also helping tobacco farmers increase their yield. 

Mighty Corp said that NTA was promoting tobacco dust to control the population of snails and other fish pond predators, as that this was “an effective and economic option to replace highly toxic and cyanide-based chemicals used in the preparation or sterilization of fishponds.”
The dust promotes the growth of lablab, an algae and natural fish food, and serves as pond floor conditioner. Pond owners and operators use it to prepare or sterilize fish ponds before stocking fingerlings there.  Fish stocking is the practice of raising fish in a hatchery and releasing them into a river, lake, or the ocean to supplement existing population, or to create a population where none exists.

The cigarette company also aims to increase the income of the tobacco-growing industry by buying 10 million tobacco leaves from local farmers all over the country.  It allotted P700,000 for the purchase of green leaves.

NTA manufactures Tobacco Dust Plus at a plant in Sto. Tomas, La Union, where leaves are re-dried and pulverized.

Other studies headed by the government agency showed promising results from the use of tobacco dust as a substitute to chemical fish pond fertilizers.