Balay Mindanaw Foundation, Inc.

Kaangayan, Kalambuan, Kalinaw ... sa Mindanaw, sa Pilipinas, sa Kalibutan

‘Manok Mindanaw’ transforms Libertad households
By By Sally Bulatao
Posted 2 March 2007

Earning a net income of P2,000 to P6,000 every two months -- added to whatever they could earn from selling copra, corn or rice -- has changed and continues to transform Barangay Libertad in Gingoog City.

The additional income is derived from raising broilers on contract. But isn’t poultry contract growing a big agribusiness that only people with capital in the millions of pesos could afford?

A happy synergy of social preparation by an NGO in cooperation with a responsive community, a businessman who recognizes the value of social discipline after failing in other communities, and a thriving market for a popular food item (lechon manok), these elements have converged in this bustling barangay less than 20 kilometers away from the poblacion of Gingoog City.

Libertad is composed of five sitios with a total of 237 households. Started in early 2006 with a few participants, some 42 households concentrated in one of the five sitios are now backyard contract growers that supply broilers to the well-known lechon manok chain, Sr. San Pedro.

The business scheme engages women in the community who otherwise would be doing less productive activities or unproductive past time, like gossiping and betting in games of chance.

Simple and short business cycle

The business cycle of about two months – 32 days to grow the chicks to broilers of 1 to 1.5 kilograms, and 21 days, after harvest, for cleaning up and bio-security protocols – is short enough to keep the barangay folks focused.

The farm technicians of Balay Mindanaw Foundation, Inc. conducts an orientation for interested participants. Now that more households are engaged, one also gathers informal orientation from a neighbor who is already into the business.

Minimum requirements

After going through orientation, the minimum requirement is for a participant to build a chicken house of about 200 square feet for 200 chicks. The house is made of indigenous materials, like bamboo and coconut leaves. Other growers have expanded to 400 and 800 chicks per cycle and have built bigger houses to comply with the required one square foot per chicken.

They also need some woven plastic sheets that are unfurled to cover the walls when it gets too windy or too cold for the chicks. There are feeding tubes for the chicks and for the bigger broilers. There are incandescent bulbs to keep the chicks warm if the temperature gets too cold. One grower has devised a heater with coals on sand.

Maintenance

Feeds are supplied by Sr. San Pedro to Balay Mindanaw, which in turn handles the delivery of supplies to the barangay. A resident technician, also a grower, has been trained to administer vaccines, distribute feeds and vitamins and monitor the farms.

Growers are provided with a guide that shows the feeding regimen and the expected weekly weight gain. Every week, 20 out of 200 chicks are weighed to check if expected weight gain is being achieved. If not, the resident farm technician may be sought for technical advice. BMFI also has a supervising farm technician who goes around for consultation and monitoring.

The first 10 days are most critical, according to the resident technician. The growers have to observe closely, 24 hours a day, for any abnormal behavior of the chicks. A rest area close to the chicken house is built for the “bantay.”

After 10 days, the chicks are bigger and have to be dispersed to occupy the full floor area of the chicken house.

Harvesting

On the 32nd day, the BMFI truck comes with the cages. The broilers are weighed at every farm house then loaded in cages. Sr. San Pedro pays P51 per kilogram, live weight. Broilers that are less than one kilogram are rejected. In a batch of 200, about 2 or 3 chickens may be found underweight and the raiser keeps it for a family feast.

The cost of the chicks, the feeds, the vitamins and biologics are deducted from the proceeds of the harvest. BMFI is paid three percent of the gross to pay for hauling of feeds and oversight by the BMFI Farm Tech Supervisor.

Depending on total weight of the harvest, a grower receives a net of about P1,000 to P1,500 for a batch of 200 broilers. There is additional revenue generated from chicken manure that sells for P90 to P100 per sack. A batch of 200 chicks produces about 4 sacks of manure. The manure of chicks in the first three days is also suitable as hog feed and is given by raisers for their pigs in the backyard.

Young poultry farmers

When visiting one farm, a young woman was feeding the chicks and later joined the conversation. Malou is a student at the nearby agricultural school. She will be going to class later in the afternoon when another student returns from school to take his turn and watch the chickens for the night.

Malou is among a group of 15 young people in the sitio who have organized themselves and sought BMFI’s permission to be allowed to have their own business. They took turns in looking after the chickens. Now, less than 10 of them remains in the group. No, not because the others have gone astray; they asked to leave the group because their families have also entered the business and are now taking care of their own chickens.

Malou was proud to say that with the last harvest, the group bought their own uniform with the proceeds of the business. They also had a small celebration after the first harvest. They bought lechon manok from Sr. San Pedro in Gingoog City for lunch and they all agreed their chicken is very tasty indeed! During special occasions, like Christmas and fiestas, one has to take a number and wait in a queue to be able to buy a lechon manok at Sr. San Pedro in Gingoog City. This makes the Libertad poultry growers wear a big smile.

The future

BMFI Executive Director Ayi Hernandez is cautious and wishes to ensure that expansion is done in a deliberate manner. There are factors that need to be studied, including the optimum size of a backyard grower, the full cost of technical support, improving production efficiencies, etc. He also shared that within the year, Manok Mindanaw as a brand of well grown chicken of upland farmers in Gingoog will be introduced to the market, together with the effort to set up a dressing plant, as a critical support to the backyard poultry growers in the area.

BMFI farm technicians are likewise careful and enforce strict protocols in the lay off period of 21 days -- for cleaning and disinfecting -- before starting another cycle.

The resident technician, Adela, is enthusiastic about the future. She testifies to the positive changes that Sr. San Pedro has brought to Libertad women with whom she interacts in her daily visits to the 40 growers in her sitio. She is particularly excited about the exchanges among the growers who, every day, find new ways to improve their business, from finding the right size of pan for the drinking water to observing keenly when the chicks are feeling cold. She imagines that Sr. San Pedro could be somewhere looking over them, saying: “Ayaw ni Sr. San Pedro na payat ang manok.” (Sr. San Pedro doesn’t want the chickens to be underweight.)

Mr. Peter Unabia, of Sr. San Pedro, is the businessman who put a premium on the organizing work of BMFI as a guarantee that the scheme could work in communities that have gone through social preparation. He was willing to do business with barrio folks who had nothing except their willingness to learn and to work.

These players along the value chain of the lechon manok business see the potentials for future expansion – engaging more barangays, expanding the basic household module or even operating a dressing plant to process the broilers harvested from these growers. For these to be realized, each player needs to deliver.

Observers are equally enthusiastic that more Libertads will emerge from this happy synergy.

^{*Sally Bulatao just resigned as administrator of the National Dairy Authority of the Department of Agriculture for the last five years. It is in her tenure that the NDA aggressively promoted and succeeded in transforming NDA to give income opportunities to small dairy farmers across the country. Her visit to Balay Mindanaw offices and communities for two weeks was her first area visit (after she left NDA) to upland communities where an existing NGO-PO-Business tri-partnership is making breakthroughs in increasing the income of upland farmers in Northern Mindanaw. She will also help set up the community-based dairy program of Balay Mindanaw.}