I, Farm Boy! Farmer Could Earn P50k/mo. Raising 10 Roosters, 50 Hens

Eleven years after I started breeding a new strain of free-range chicken which I have named “Manok Pinoy,” I am now ready to roll out a project on backyard chicken farming which I believe could address poverty in the rural areas and provide food security for the country.

With 10 roosters and 50 hens, a farmer who will be closely supervised and assisted by poultry experts, equipped with an incubator, brooder and provided with the needed biologics, could earn no less than P50,000 per month.

I have designed this program as part of my personal and official advocacy to address rural poverty in Mindanao and perhaps later in the whole country.

There was a time in my youth when almost every rural family had a few heads of native chicken running around in the backyard which served as the source of eggs and meat and during difficult times, money for the daily needs.

Today, a rural family hardly raises chicken and relies on eggs produced by hens in battery cages sold in the market.

For chicken meat, they buy culled layer hens sold along the highways.

Raising backyard chicken, while practical and profitable, is a dying tradition in the countryside because of the prevalence of poultry diseases and the lack of expert advice on how to address these challenges.

The most common and very destructive poultry disease is “dungoy” or “aratay,” or the seasonal avian pest where chicken would just fall off the roost at night.

This is a very simple problem solved through vaccination but without the help of experts, the farmers have stopped raising backyard chicken because of this.

The program which I designed, the Mindanao Free-Range Chicken Farming is actually a Loaning Program for Backyard Raisers With Production Buy-Back Agreement.

The package, worth P200,000, includes breeding materials, incubators, brooders, feeds and biologics, weekly supervision by a poultry technician and a buy-back contract, assures farmers of an annual gross income of P600,000 which could double if he increases his flock.

This is not a dole-out. I loath dole-outs because it breeds dependence and mendicancy.

The farmer-beneficiary of this program will have to enroll in a cooperative which would provide the capitalization of P200,000, most of which will be in kind and not cash.

At least two huge cooperatives have expressed interest in funding the initial roll out of the program which would involve 1,000 families, 100 each in 10 towns of North Cotabato for a start.

I have chosen the 10 towns of North Cotabato as the pilot area because of the proximity of the areas to my farm in Kidapawan City which would allow us weekly supervisory visits.

This project, if implemented well, could change the rural social landscape in the years to come.

When that happens, my advocacy of addressing rural poverty through a well-planned agricultural program would have been realized.

#KungGustoMaramingParaan!