Filipino Genius Behind 95% Male Tilapia

[00:00:00]This Filipino scientist helped create a technology that changed fish farming around the world, but most Filipinos have never heard of him. The problem was simple. Tilapia reproduce too fast. Fish ponds became overcrowded, the fish grew smaller, and farmers earned less money.

[00:00:14]Farmers needed more male tilapia because they grow faster [music] and bigger than females. But finding and separating them one by one took too much time and effort. So how did a Filipino [music] scientist solve this problem? As a student at the University of the Philippines, he struggled financially.

[00:00:28][music] Even with a scholarship, he still worked as a dishwasher to earn free meals. According to some accounts, he joined the UP Glee [music] Club to receive additional allowance while studying, and he worked as a student assistant while finishing his studies.

[00:00:40]Despite his financial struggles, [music] he never gave up on his studies. After graduating and teaching in the Philippines, he earned a scholarship to study in the United States. There he specialized in fish biology and discovered [music] a major problem affecting fish farmers. Male tilapia grew faster and larger than females, making them [music] more profitable. But producing mostly male tilapia was a challenge. So he set out to find a solution. After years of research, he [music] found a way. By treating young tilapia at an early stage of development, he was able to produce fry that were [music] almost entirely male.

[00:01:10]Together with his wife, he developed SRT-95, or sex reversed tilapia 95% male [music] fry. The result was a game-changer.

[00:01:19]Farmers could grow larger fish, increase production, and earn more income. The technology became so successful that it spread to more [music] than 20 countries. But he wasn't finished. He later pioneered vermicomposting, using earthworms to turn farm [music] and fish waste into valuable organic fertilizer.

[00:01:35]What others saw as waste, he saw as an opportunity. [music] His discoveries earned him some of the highest awards in Philippine science. Yet many Filipinos still don't [music] know his story. Did you know his name is Rafael Dineros Guerrero III, the Filipino scientist whose innovations helped transform [music] fish farming around the world?