Food, Livelihood! Sorghum, Backyard Chicken Best Option For Poor Families

Listening to the pained cry of the farmer from Davao in a post I shared earlier who called on government to help as the price of Kalabasa dropped to only P2 per kilo, I immediately retrieved from my laptop files a program which I crafted a few months ago which I believe could provide a ivelihood option for our farmers.
I have named this Concept as the Mindanao Highland Communities Food Security & Livelihood Program, A Comprehensive Farm-Family-Based Program to address Poverty by Improving Agricultural Productivity.
There are two products involved in this program – Sorghum Farming and Backyard Chicken Raising, specifically the new free-range chicken breed which I developed 13 years ago, the Manok Pinoy.
What makes the Sorghum Farming and the Manok Pinoy Raising program different from other agricultural activities like Kalabasa farming is the Ready Market.
The absence of a Ready Market to absorb products like Kalabasa, Tomatoes and other perishable agricultural products had been the bane of Philippine food production.
Farmers planted Kalabasa simply because they heard that somebody made millions when his Kalabasa was bought for P30 per kilo.
In the case of the program which I have crafted, Sorghum will be introduced to marginal farmers especially in the highlands where our small company, Southseas Agri-Aqua Ventures Inc. will provide the seeds and the technology.
More importantly, SAAVI will buy back the Sorghum produced by the farmer at an agreed price, thus ensuring the farmer not only of a ready market but a guaranteed price.
Backyard Chicken Farming, on the other hand, will be an added farming activity for the farmer who planted Sorghum which would come handy because he could just feed his free-range chicken with his extra Sorghum production.
Just like Sorghum, the Manok Pinoy free-range chicken raised but the farmer will have a market since I will engage them in a Buy-Back Agreement, also with an agreed price.
The critical factor in this Program is the Market Absorption of the products with a guaranteed buying price.
This program which I just crafted will be launched in three selected communities of 100 families with 1-hectare each in the towns of Alamada, Mlang and Pres. Roxas.
One Module involving 100 families will require only a P2-million investment, an amount which I know many of my friends and advocacy supporters are willing to put in.
So, with P2-million, 100 poor farm families in the highlands of Mindanao will have a regular source of income from a livelihood activities with a ready market.
More than that, these families would serve as a model of a farm-family based Food Security and Poverty Alleviation Program.
When these first three module prove successful, this strategy of producing food and fighting rural poverty could be replicated in
other rural areas and highlands of the country.
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!