WHERE EAST MATES WEST…

Following the electoral shocker in 2010 where I lost in the country’s first computerized elections, I became deeply involved with my farm.

I bred gamefowls, goats and carabaos and experimented on breeding meat chicken because of the acute shortage in the supply of free-ranged organically-fed poultry.

Through my friend, Jim Clem, of Klamath Falls, Oregon, I brought in two dozens of American meat and egg chicken breeds – Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Barred Rock.

I was disappointed to find out that the imported chicken, which were all chicks when they arrived, were all females.

This, however, led me to experiment in breeding the Western poultry breeds with the sturdy Oriental chicken breed known locally as Pauwakan or Jolo.

The Rhode Island Red and the Plymouth Barred Rock are prolific egg layers while the Pauwakan or Jolo, which could grow up to 5 kilos, are known to be resistant to diseases and sturdy.

The result of the experiment was simply astonishing. Cross-bred chicks out of the mating of the Oriental and Occidental chicken breeds proved to be very sturdy and fast-growing.

Chicks which were free-ranged after they were immunized against NCD, a very common poultry disease in the Philippines, grew to about 800 grams in 40 days and about 1.4 kilos in a little over two months.

But the greatest discovery was the meat taste.

The meat of this new breed which I call Manok Pinoy tastes just like native chicken or the Philippine chicken used in the tasty chicken barbecue.

With this successful experiment, I intend to work hand in hand with the local agricultural university, the University of Southern Mindanao, my alma mater, to set up a breeding farm within the USM compound.

If by God’s grace, I will be back as Governor of North Cotabato this year, the breeding farm, which will be run and operated by the Department of Animal Science students, will produce Manok Pinoy chicks which will be distributed to farming families in the province who will raise them up to a weight of about 1.2 to 1.4 kilos.

With a chicken dressing plant to be set up beside the Mlang Airport or Central Mindanao Airport, the provincial government could buy back the poultry production of the farmers.

The dressed free-ranged and organically-fed chicken could then be brought by air transport to the big cities of Cebu, Metro Manila and Baguio where they are in great demand.

Come think of this, if farming families are able to produce 300,000 heads of Manok Pinoy for the chicken barbecue business every month, at P140 per kilo, North Cotabato farming families could earn at least P50 million monthly.

That is a lot of money to fuel the local economy.

(Photo caption: This is a yard of Rhode Island Red hens mated to a black Pauwakan or Jolo rooster. The product of the mating is Manok Pinoy.)