The City Agriculture Office of Tarlac City and the goat farmers in the area celebrated a milestone on goat enterprise management.
This was during the launching of the two volume training modules on the said livelihood option titled: Facilitator’s Guide to Farmer Livestock School on Goat Enterprise Management (FLS-GEM) Implementation.
The launch was conducted during the opening of the Farmer Livestock School sponsored by the Federation of Goat and Sheep Producers and Associations of the Philippines, Inc. (FGASPAPI), the Goat and Sheep Producers Association of Tarlac (GASPAT) and the Tarlac City Government.
Key officials of the FGASPAPI and GASPAT received the FLS-GEM Training Modules in a ceremonial hand-over given by PCAARRD through Dr. Edwin C. Villar, Director of the Livestock Research Division.
Dr. Villar and Ms. Anna Marie P. Alo, the developer-author of the FLS-GEM, inspired the beneficiaries of the Tarlac City Government’s program on “Pangkabuhayan, Pangkalusugan at Pangkalikasan ng Syudad ng Tarlac” with their respective inspirational messages.
City Councilor Noel M. Soliman III, Chair of the SP Committee on Livestock Development of Tarlac City and President of the FGASPAPI, on the other hand, stressed the federation’s advocacy of FLS-GEM as a training medium and as a national training modality.
“This training modality will assist in building up the capacities of small-hold farmers on improved goat raising and at the same time disseminate the appropriate information and technologies to the countryside,” Soliman said.
The FLS-GEM’s participatory approach exemplifies an adult learning modality wherein livestock farmers are empowered to create a basket-full of production and enterprise management options that will best suit their capacities.
A discovery-based scientific approach to agricultural extension adapting the farmer field school (FFS) methodology, the FLS-GEM is envisioned to encourage community participation on self-learning in the promotion of mature technologies to the countryside.
The training runs continuously for six months where the farmer devotes half a day per week for the training course.
Training Modules
The training modules come in two volumes: Volume 1 for the session guides and 2 for the technical handouts.
The first volume bundles in five courses:
- Course 1 describes the basic tools and concepts on participatory processes of adults that farmers need to internalize;
- Course 2 talks about how farms are primed for profitable goat raising;
- Courses 3 and 4 expound on the farmers’ participatory engagement in technology development and routine FLS monitoring and evaluation activities; and
- Course 5 defines the participatory tools on how the conduct of the FLS is to be evaluated.
The Technical Handouts in Volume 2, on the other hand, weave together technical, financial and social aspects in goat enterprise management. The first part of the module discusses the importance of appropriate communication channels as tool to facilitate self-help learning thru the participatory approach.
The next part draws in communal participation in the community in crafting solutions on identified farm problems. The last part marries the technical aspects of alternative production management systems inputted in the basket of technologies with the economics of goat-based enterprises in defining and understanding the potentials of the goat industry.
Fifty-five livestock farmers from twenty-four towns and FLS-GEM trainors of Tarlac joined the launching.