BARELY A month after the Department of Agriculture (DA) delivered 290 ready-to-lay (RTL) chickens to a group of 25 residents of Barangay Tubigon in this town, the beneficiaries are already garnering revenues from their burgeoning egg production business.
In an interview on Thursday, Mariz Vargas, operational, planning budget, monitoring and evaluation head of the DA’s Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) program, confirmed that the Tubigon Planters Association (TPA) is already selling eggs for PHP200 to PHP230 per tray.
The DA-SAAD program spent a total of PHP800,080 on the “Dekalb” RTL chickens and related capital goods, which include 10 sets of chicken cooperatives, 150 sacks of feeds and 40 bottles of assorted vitamins and medicines.
Dekalb is a breed of chicken that is efficient, docile and capable of laying up to 500 eggs in 100 weeks.
“The DA-SAAB program seeks to provide interventions to 5th and 6th class municipalities, particularly the far-flung ones, by encouraging the establishment of community-based enterprises," Vargas told the Philippine News Agency in Filipino.
She said the TPA’s poultry is located within a one-hectare communal farm owned by TPA vice president Suzette Llorca.
Vargas said that since the layers were delivered last Dec. 11, they have been producing about 125 eggs per day.
Between the time the chickens began to lay eggs soon after delivery until Jan. 13 this year, the TPA reported an income of some PHP31,545, representing 138 trays of eggs sold.
Vargas said TPA is composed of four men and 21 women who are mostly stay-at-home mothers seeking to supplement their household incomes.
For her part, Llorca said residents of Barangay Tubigon used to be “very wary” of putting up their own businesses because of lack of management expertise.
She said the DA has given their community a big “break” and the income from this endeavor will go a long way towards putting the children of TPA members through school.
“We are very thankful to the DA because this (egg-production business) marks the beginning of a new source of income for Tubigon residents. Our neighbors will learn a lot about running a business… and even with limited management know-how, they can have an additional livelihood,” she added in Filipino.
Llorca allowed the association to put up the communal poultry farm on her property for free.
Meanwhile, Vargas said the DA, through its 2024 SAA Fund, will provide additional capital to the TPA this year. (Miguel Gil)
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