OCCIDENTAL MINDORO, April 16, 2021 – Department of Agriculture – Special Area for Agricultural Development (DA-SAAD) Program’s community-based poultry project in Magsaysay flourishes, providing steady income for the Poultry Calawag Association.

The group with 18 members from Barangay Calawag is in its 4th month of production and already gathered more than 13,000 eggs from the Ready-to-Lay (RTL) Chicken Project provided by the Program.

A total of Php 69,200 profit was recorded in just four months (Table 1).

Table 1. Poultry Calawag Association’s Egg Production and Profit within 5 months

The project – which comprised of 290 Lohmann breed chickens raised mainly for egg-laying production (Php 237,800), 100 sacks of 50 kg layer crumble feeds (Php 174,950), and 6 units of chicken-layer cage (Php 61,200) – was distributed in October 2020.

In total, the package is worth Php 513,450 funded in FY 2020.

The association aims to compete with big egg suppliers around the municipality through continued poultry operations and marketing of products.

The group’s approach is to strengthen the organization by ensuring sufficient cooperation, communication, and finance management.

The members take turns in maintaining the poultry farm, ensuring health and safety of the animals, as well as cage maintenance and repair. It will ensure participation and familiarity with animal management among the members.

To engage, maintain, and hopefully expand the operations, the members are allowed to borrow funds from the organization with a 2% interest rate. In addition, the earnings from their loan activity will be invested in swine production as an opportunity for rising pork market demand in their area. Likewise, farm maintenance and care expenses will be shouldered from the association’s loan profit.

“Malaking tulong ito para sa aming mga miyembro dahil mas mababa ang interes nito kumpara sa ibang nagpapautang. Magagamit namin ang pondo upang patuloy na mapalago ang aming kita at makatulong sa mga gastusin sa aming mga bukirin,” shared Linda Masangkay, PCA chairperson.

RTL: a strategy to help improve malnutrition

Brgy. Calawag has 21 malnutrition cases out of 160 for 0-5-year-old children (BLGU, January 2021). Through PCA’s egg production, aside from empowering the locals to engage in agriculture for livelihood, this is also seen beneficial to the community members as access to fresh eggs, a nutritious food resource is made easier and affordable through their enterprise.

To augment the positive and consistent outcome of their livelihood project, the association plans to engage in value-adding activities and expand its production by purchasing more chickens and going beyond fresh egg production. ###

 

Writer: Jessamae Gabon, SAAD NPMO Information Officer

Sources:

Dianne Francis A. Sy, RPMSO MIMAROPA Information Officer

Vilmar Robes, Area Coordinator Magsaysay

Brgy. Calawag Local Government Unit