Egg production provides the crack for better
income
VERUELA, Agusan Del Sur, Aug. 21 (PIA) -- Rice
farmers in Barangay Sampaguita of this municipality recently turned into egg
production for them to have a regular income.
“Rice farmers here only know two words: short or
failure,” said Samuel ViΓ±an, member of the Sampaguita Irrigators’ Association
(SIA) referring to their usual yield in rice farming.
ViΓ±an who owns a hectare and a caretaker of
another five-hectare rice farms said rice farming is not enough to meet the
daily needs of his family.
“We usually just have break-even and sometimes
have very low yield due to pests and diseases incidence which could not even
supply for our food consumption” he said.
The same situation holds true with other
irrigators associations in the town. So they decided to look for alternative
income to address low productivity in rice farming.
Their plan to have alternative livelihood was
realized when the municipal agriculture office endorsed their proposal to the
Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP).
MRDP is a special project under the DA and
jointly funded by the World Bank, the national and local government units.
The program provides livelihood assistance to
small farmers, rural women, and indigenous tribe through its Community Fund for
Agricultural Development (CFAD).
Although several suggestions cropped up on what
livelihood should be implemented, the egg-laying production prevailed
considering that there is a high demand for fresh eggs in the local market.
“Local egg traders used to sourced out their
stocks outside Veruela without assurance of its quality and safety. With this,
the organization thought of supplying the local market not only to earn more
but also to assure consumers of fresh and better quality of egg products,” said
agriculture technician Paterno Dayaday.
With the help of the DA office in Region 13, the
association availed themselves of P250, 000 funds from MRDP-CFAD to start up
egg production project. The amount was used to purchase layer stocks, feeds,
and biologics including construction of poultry cages.
Since the success of egg-production business
depends on effective management of layer farm, the municipal agriculture office
conducted a hands-on training to better equip the association in handling their
livelihood.
“We brought the SIA member to a poultry farm in
the adjacent town of Sta. Josefa where they were exposed to poultry management
from feeding, disease prevention and control, harvesting and storing including
record keeping and marketing,” he added.
ViΓ±an learned that his role as the caretaker of
the poultry farm is crucial in ensuring healthy and productive stocks. He also
learned that right from the start, layer stocks must be of good quality.
“We feed our layers three times a day and
provide them vitamins and necessary antibiotics through the assistance of the
municipal and provincial agriculture technicians,” he said.
Layers must be kept healthy to be prolific and
provide best quality eggs. ViΓ±an said he is restricting the number of persons
entering the layer farm to avoid disease contamination.
“My son acts as my reliever in case I have fever
or colds so we can keep our layers healthy,” he said.
Their efforts eventually paid off as their layer
farm now yields at least 263 – 270 eggs per day.
“We are selling the large sized eggs at P140 per
tray [or 30 pieces] and P130 for medium sized eggs,” he said.
As caretaker of the project ViΓ±an gets 10
percent of their association’s income which gives him at least P3,000 – P4,000
monthly income which is a big help for him to meet his family’s needs.
“Before I can hardly pay the tuition fee of my
children even if the school year is about to end. Now, they are fully paid as
early as enrollment time,” he beams with pride.
He said other members are also reaping benefits
from the projects such as meeting their daily consumption while some has even
improved their houses and bought appliances like television set as well as
motorcycle.
“We are glad that through the assistance of
MRDP, DA regional office, and the provincial and local governments we were
given the chance to improve their income,” he said.
Francisco Joseph, one of the board of trustees
of the town’s council of irrigators’ association said they are planning to make
use of the poultry waste through vermicomposting so that they can also produce
organic fertilizer for their rice farms.
“We are also exploring ways to formulate organic
feeds to minimize operating expenses. Once the association can pay back the
amount they have accessed from MRDP-CFAD we will extend the same financial
assistance to other irrigators’ association in the town,” he said.
MRDP program director Lealyn Ramos said the
initiative of SIA has proven that farmers can have good economic returns if
they would try to diversify farm production.
“Farmers should not be dependent on one
commodity to overcome low productivity. The case of rice farmers in Veruela had
proven that they can also handle egg-production and scale-up their meager
income,” she said. (Noel T. Provido, DA-MRDP/RER/NCLM/PIA-Caraga)
DSWD completes P120.7M infra projects in Caraga
BUTUAN CITY, Aug. 21 (PIA) – One hundred forty
(140) barangays from 15 municipalities in Caraga region have benefited from
P120.7 million worth of infrastructure projects from the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa
Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services
(Kalahi-CIDSS) implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWD).
Infrastructure projects ranging from water
system, road rehabilitation and footbridges to health stations, school buildings
and day-care centers have ensured that social services were met in far-flung
areas.
“The department has successfully turned-over 140
infrastructures or sub-projects to the respective local government units who
availed of the regular Kalahi-CIDSS and the performance incentive Makamasang
Tugon,” DSWD Caraga regional director Mercedita P. Jabagat explained.
Thirteen municipalities in the region
implemented Makamasang Tugon as two other towns implemented the regular
Kalahi-CIDSS with community activities wrapped for one year to carry out the
project’s objectives of empowering communities, improving local governance, and
reducing poverty.
Both programs are the flagship anti-poverty
projects of the government that employs the community-driven development (CDD)
strategy that gives the grassroots the power to decide for themselves and
guarantees social accountability.
Aside from the grant provided by the DSWD, a
counterpart scheme was also put in place wherein the LGUs in the barangay,
municipal, and provincial levels contributed funds to carry out expenses for
the operational costs and conduct of capability-building trainings that
amounted to P28.78 million.
“The project doesn’t only provide infrastructure
to these communities but more importantly, it creates a pool of volunteers who
will steer development in their towns and this is done through the technical
assistance extended for them in trainings and workshops,” Jabagat added.
For most of these areas, DSWD is concluding its
three-year Kalahi-CIDSS engagement to each municipal local government units
(MLGUs) that was piloted in the region in 2003.
“The department’s development assistance to the
most vulnerable and deprived areas in the country continues. We are nearing our
completion of disbursing the remaining grant of the project and hopefully next
year, Kalahi-CIDSS 2 or the National Community-Driven Development (NCDD)
program will begin,” Jabagat concluded. (Keneath John O. Bolisay,
DSWD-13/NCLM/PIA-Caraga)
DSWD, OPAPP to meet LGUs for peace confab
BUTUAN CITY, Aug. 21 (PIA) -- The Department of
Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Office of the Presidential
Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) will conduct a five-day basic orientation
and workshop, August 22-26, this city.
This is to prepare staff and local government
units (LGU) for the second cycle implementation of PAMANA (Payapa at Masaganang
Pamayanan).
Participants of the five-day workshop are the
LGUs from La Paz, Esperanza, and Veruela in Agusan del Sur; and Tagbina and San
Miguel in Surigal del Sur. These areas were selected by OPAPP and identified as
conflict affected areas (CAAs).
The workshop also aimed at integrating the
principles of Bridging Leadership and Do No Harm in conflict analysis and
assessment.
PAMANA employs the community-driven development
strategy of Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated
Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) in implementing sub-projects that
will be identified by the communities.
The DSWD is implementing Pillar 2 of PAMANA in
the delivery of basic social services and goods focused on households and
communities. (Keneath John O. Bolisay, DSWD-13/RER/NCLM/PIA-Caraga)
