By Manny Pinol
Davao City village and tribal leaders sent by Mayor Rody Duterte to North Cotabato to discover effective anti-poverty strategies were amazed and surprised that simple farm activities like backyard chicken raising could earn money for poor farm folks.
Touring the breeding yards, the incubation facilities, the brooder and the free-range areas for Manok PiNoy, the Davao City village and tribal leader were left literally wide-eyed at the very simple yet working set up.
They were especially impressed by the locally-designed brooder heaters using burning charcoal placed inside cylinders made out of discarded GI sheets and milk cans.
“Kaya man nato ni himoun sa atong barangay kay doul man ta sa merkado,” said village leader from Paquibato District, Davao City’s poorest area which is now the focus of Mayor Duterte’s development initiatives.
(We can easily do this in our barangays especially so since we are very near the market.)
The sight of thousands of lively chicks in the brooders and healthy cockerels and pullets in the free-range areas, the visiting vllage and tribal leaders said they will ask Mayor Duterte to incorporate backyard poultry raising in the Oil Palm growing project being proposed for Paquibato District.
“Mao ni ang tininoud nga Lakbay Aral kay daghan gyud ta ug natun-an,” the village leaders said. (This is the real study tour because we really learned a lot.)
The village leaders were obviously referring to the practice of other local government units to bring their barangay chairmen to resort areas like Boracay in the guise of Lakbay Aral or study tour.
Early in the day, the Davao City village officials visited the Oil Palm nursery in Makilala town and the Oil Palm farm in Barangay Dungguan, M’lang both in North Cotabato and the Agumil Oil Mill in Buluan, Maguindanao.
The group will next visit Sabah, Malaysia to look at Oil Palm and Rubber farms in that country and how the two major agricultural crops improved the lives of the people.
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