Appendix: definition of terms
1. Fry gatherer: An individual, usually working as part of a small
team, who captures fry along the coastline with various nets and traps.
2. Concessionaire: That individual, partnership, corporation, or
co-operative designated by a coastal municipality, usually after competitive
bidding, as having exclusive rights to exploit a given fry ground.
3. Dealer: An individual, partnership, or corporation (other than a
concessionaire) engaged in buying and selling of fry, or in buying and selling
of market-size milkfish. While taking title to the commodity, primary functions
of dealers are storage and transport, not transformation from fry to
fingerlings. Dealers of market-size milkfish are either wholesalers or
retailers, and sell to either domestic or export markets.
4. Commissionman: A buyer's or a seller's representative, who does
not take title to fry, fingerlings, or market-size milkfish in his own name, but
in the name of the person he represents, and is paid a commission based on the
volume of the purchase or sale.
5. Broker: A facilitator of fry, fingerling, or market-size fish
exchanges between buyers and sellers, who does not take title to the commodity
in his own name. Brokers are of two types, based on the means of payment. The
first type acts as broker for the seller, stores the fry or market size fish
until a buyer is found, and charges either a flat fee, or more likely, a
percentage commission (usually 5 per cent) based on the selling price. The
second type, common only in the fry procurement sub-system, represents neither
buyer nor seller but arranges the exchange between the two, and has a return
based on the spread that can be created between the selling price and the buying
price.
6. Runner: A smuggler of fry from fry grounds, who acts as a dealer
or as commission man. Frequently, a runner is financed by a particular buyer for
whom he is smuggling.
7. Nursery-pond operator: One who specializes in raising fry to
fingerling size for sale to fishpond or fishpen operators.
8. Fishpond operator: One who raises either fry, fingerlings, or a
combination of both to market size in a pond.
9. Fishpen operator: One who raises fingerlings to market size in a
fixed bamboo net enclosure rather than in a pond.
10. Consumer: One who purchases market-size milkfish for consumption
purposes.
As in any large scale business activity, functionaries in the milkfish
resource system cannot always be as clearly delineated as the above categories
imply. Fry gatherers occasionally double as runners. Nursery-pond operators and
even commission men also serve as dealers and brokers. However, the broad
distinctions among functionaries are necessary to establish the production and
marketing chain and the role within it played by each
functionary.