A project, titled Farm-based promotion of alternative management options and farm recording has improved goat farms and increased awareness about S&T-based goat farm production. The training, Farmer Livestock School on Goat Enterprise Management (FLS-GEM) provides innovative and technically feasible technologies that are products of S&T endeavors.
The project addresses the low productivity of goat farms in the country as well as the 28.8 percent herd mortality rate recorded in another project titled National Goat Farm Performance in the Philippines.
FLS-GEM was developed by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD). The training focuses on technologies of raising goats and how to build enterprises. Participants are able to understand the rudiments of goat raising through a six-month course where lessons are supplemented by take-home assignments and experimentation in their own farms.
FLS-GEM has produced 23 national trainors who were able to train 292 regional trainors. These regional trainors in turn trained a total of 2,539 farmers in the participating communities in Regions 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, and 12.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) has acknowledged FLS-GEM as the national training modality and made it part of the Small Ruminants Roadmap. Likewise, the Federation of Goat and Sheep Producers Associations of the Philippines Inc. (FGASPAPI) has adopted it and made it as a prerequisite before availing any dispersed goat.
The project found that in farms where the farmers had been FLS-trained, improved farm performance was seen. This included increased conception rate from 72 to 87 percent; decreased kidding interval from 251 to 245 days; increased kid size from an average of 1.50 head to 1.64 head; decreased pre-weaning mortality from 25 to 4.49 percent; and increased profitability of the five-doe backyard level operation from ₱9,021.38 to ₱27,374.65.
According to the project findings, a farmer who has five does for slaughter goat farming can also get additional income from selling forage planting materials, selling vermicompost from goat wastes, selling vermicast, renting bucks per service, and selling urea molasses mineral block (UMMB).
About 59.30 percent of the graduates cited maximum utilization of the farms as idle lands have been converted into a farm for forage crops for goat feed.
The project, which is funded by DOST-PCAARRD, is one of the three finalists in the National Symposium on Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Development (NSAARRD) development category. The project was authored by Dr. Patricia M. Barcelo, Dr. Juvidel Jaye P. Castillo, Mr. Neal del Rosario, Mr. Rolando Hipe, Dr. Reynaldo T. Intong, and Engr. Nathaniel Naanep.
NSAARRD is being spearheaded by the DOST-PCAARRD.
PCAARRD will celebrate its seventh year anniversary on June 22, 2018 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC), Pasay City, where it will recognize the effort of its partners through NSAARRD.