Agriculture Business Week

“If symptoms persist call your veterinarian.” Many years ago this was the by-line of a radio advertisement of a popular over-the-counter antibiotic for farm animals. Calling the vet only when the animal disease symptoms persist despite treatment with that antibiotic is a take-off from similar advertisement of OTC medications for humans. This action, however; doesn’t work in the same manner as it does in human patients.

Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs preparations for animals can contain anything that has been so-called “approved” to be marketed and used for “backyard” animal farms. Almost all of these OTC preparations contain varying amounts of antibiotics, which by the way are quite restricted if not entirely prohibited in OTC drug preparations for humans.

There have been volumes of literature (technical and popular) written and published about the danger of indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animals to human health. While many countries have been quite successful in enforcing restriction of antibiotics and certain other drugs for use in farm animals, we are still far from doing the same.

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Posted on November 20th, 2008 under Livestock, Poultry. Tags: Animals, Disease. Comments: None

An innovative agricultural program from UP Los Banos is now benefiting thousands of farmers.

This is the “Agricultural Systems Cluster (ASC) Rice-Duck Model” started in 2005. The development program is being implemented by the ASC of the college of agriculture in partnership with the offices of provincial veterinarians, municipal agriculturists and farmer associations.

Today, the program involves the participation of 100 farmer co-operators in four rice-duck zones with pilot sites in Laguna, particularly in Victoria, Sta. Cruz, Siniloan and San Pablo City.

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Posted on October 22nd, 2008 under Poultry, Rice. Tags: Duck, Rice. Comments: None

At the outset, it would appear unbelievable that an Ateneo graduate who was bred and raised in the city would be able to salvage a losing poultry in Tayabas City, Quezon and transform it into a profitable broiler farm earning at least P5 million year

It seems preposterous that Albert Quiogue, 51, a former executive of the Sarmiento Group of Companies for 15 years and a former bank manager in Baguio for five years, would be able to do it.

Imagine a man who used to wear executive attire and drive top of the line cars year in and year out in the hustle and bustle of city life and all of a sudden he is brought to a barangay where deadening silence is broken every now and then by the sound of cicadas. How could he survive such situation and the obnoxious smell of chicken manure?

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Posted on October 21st, 2008 under Poultry. Tags: Ateneo, Chicken, Manure. Comments: None

Two broiler raisers in Sta. Maria, Bulacan have revealed that the use of a locally formulated growth promoter has spelled their success in broiler raising. Both of them have stopped using foreign formulations that they were using earlier.

Their observations have been confirmed by the broiler production expert of the Central Luzon State University (CLSU), Dr. Edgar Orden who, as manager of the university’s broiler production for a long time already, is also using the same growth promoter.

They are Herminio Mateo and Deogracias “Bodie” Mendoza Jr., 57 and 52 years old, respectively. Besides raising broilers in their farms, they are also engaged in contract growing. They provide opportunities to small raisers without sufficient capital to raise broilers and earn some income by giving them chicks, feeds, medicine and Biolyte, a growth promoter manufactured by Novatech Vet and Biologicals Corporation, a sister corporation of Novatech AgriFoods Industries.

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Posted on October 19th, 2008 under Poultry. Tags: Broiler. Comments: None

Here’s good news for mallard duck raisers. You can now substitute half of your duck layer pellets with crushed golden apple snail (GAS) or golden kuhol and still produce as much egg as when the birds are totally fed with duck layer pellets.

Results of a study conducted by researchers of the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Unit I showed that 100 duck layers could be fed with a mixture of 11.75.kg of crushed GAS mixed thoroughly with 11.75 kg of pellets.

In the absence of pellets, you can use formulated ration consisting of ground corn, rice bran, soybean oil meal, oyster shell powder, meat, bone meal and salt. Although half of the feeds could be substituted with crushed GAS, the birds were found to have better appetite when they were given a mixture of 25 percent crushed golden apple snail and 75 percent formulated ration.

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Posted on October 17th, 2008 under Poultry. Tags: Duck, Golden Apple Snail. Comments: None

Such is the most appropriate description of a man, Johnny Tagamolila of Bacolod City who has become an avid raiser of the Darag, a strain of native chicken indegenous to Western Visayas. The farmer gentleman in his seventies is a retired bank manager but is still very much active in the business of money lending. But apart from this business, the Tagamolila family also owns 15 hectares(ha) of sugarland and about 3 ha of bangus fishpond located in Himamalayan, Negros Occidental. A successful family man, all his sons are already professionals, two medical doctors and one from the academe. His lovely wife takes pride in caring for him, the household and the family business.

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Posted on October 12th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Poultry. Tags: Chicken, Native Chicken. Comments: None

The key to a profitable farming project is often found in creating a niche market for one’s product. Just like Michael “TJ” Gonzalez of Brgy. Concepcion, Baliuag, Bulacan. He has found a lucrative market for chickens that are raised the natural farming way, i.e., without the use of antibiotics, fishmeal and blood meal in the feeds.

About a year ago, he came to know of people who were looking for such poultry meat. They were the relatives of cancer patients as well as parents of autistic children in Metro Manila. Most of the buyers come from exclusive villages who can afford to pay higher prices for special products that they need.

Sensing the opportunity to produce such chickens which he knew nobody was producing then for that special market, he started on April 28, 2007 by just buying 20 chicks of the now increasingly becoming popular Solraya Sunshine chicken of Dr. Rey and Sandy Itchon. He paid a high price of P55 pesos per chick because that was something very new and the supply was very limited.
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Posted on October 7th, 2008 under Poultry. Tags: Chicken. Comments: None

It used to be that the Sasso chicken from France was very popular with a lot of local growers, especially the smaller raisers that included backyard raisers and hobbyists. Of course, the Sasso also appealed to those with commercial intentions.

In the first several years, many raisers praised the plump body of the bird, its fast growth, its sturdiness and of course its taste that resembles that of the native chicken. The big difference, however, is that the Sasso meat is more tender.

In the past few years, however, many of the growers have become disgruntled. Their chickens did not grow as fast and as big as before. One municipality in Pangasinan dispersed thousands of Sasso chicks several years ago. The intention was to improve the chickens the small farmers were growing. The recipients are not really impressed now. An expatriate and his Filipino wife in Abra used to have a commercial operation raising Sasso chicken in their resort and selling dressed birds as well as liver pate and other processed chicken meat. They have slowed down in their business as the latest chicks they obtained, according to them, did not perform as well as they used to do.
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Posted on October 6th, 2008 under Poultry. Tags: Chicken, Sasso, Sunshine Chicken. Comments: None

A forestry expert has found that chicken feathers can he recycled into a low-cost, lightweight, and decay-resistant composite panel for use as building material for housing and construction.

He is Dr. Menandro Acda, a professor in the University of the Philippines Los Banos College of Forestry and Natural Resources where he has been working on his project called “Recycling Waste Chicken Feathers for Low-cost Building Material” since last year. This project was one of the 2007 grantees under the Ford Conservation & Environmental Grants Program.

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Posted on September 28th, 2008 under Poultry, Special Report. Tags: Chicken, Construction. Comments: None