AGRI 111 - Exercise 4 (Group Sci. Paper)

1A scientific paper submitted in partial fulfilment in Agriculture 111 under Instr. Arlan James D. Rodeo, 2nd sem., 2015-2016

UNDERSTANDING FARMING CIRCUMSTANCES1

Lenitta Lopez

Donnalyn Magat

Cris Pullan

Group 1 Section B-1L

April 19, 2016

INTRODUCTION

Over the past decades, the local swine industry remains the largest among all other livestock

industries in terms of productivity and gross value contribution to the national economy. It is the

most favored animal meat product representing more than 55% of the total annual meat

consumption of Filipinos (The Pork Production Committee, 2004; 2006). According to the Bureau of

Agricultural Statistics (BAS), the total swine population decreased at an average annual rate of -

3.07% from 13.4 million heads in 2009 to 11.8 million heads in 2013. About 64% of the total swine

population is raised in backyard farms, while the remaining 36% are in commercial farms. In

contrast, per capita consumption of pork increased from 18.40 kg in 2009 to 18.62 kg per year in

2013, growing at an average annual rate of 0.34% (BAS, 2014). This may be due to stronger

purchasing power of Filipino consumers as GDP per capita has grown from $1,832 in 2009 to $2,765

in 2013 (de Vera, 2014). However, the swine industry is beset with numerous challenges, which

includes increasing cost of feeds and other production inputs, high overhead cost both in swine

production and feed milling, and heavy dependence on imported feed ingredients. Therefore,

development and adoption of improved technologies that reduces cost of production, improved

genetics, and cost-effective feeding systems by swine raisers in the country may contribute to the

sustainability of the swine enterprise.

The practiced swine operation system in the Philippines in not the same for all swine farmers.

This therefore affects the sustainability of the swine business especially for small-hold pig farmers.

This study, therefore aims to further understand the circumstances of a swine backyard

farmer that mainly depends on this enterprise as a source of living.

Objectives of the study

Therefore the objective of the study is to have an exposure to the actual situation of farmers

and be able to understand the distinct situations of farmers in their own perspective. Specifically it

aims to:

1. To gain knowledge on farm situations and operations;

2. To be able to apply theoretical knowledge on dealing with farmers, and:

3. To be able to assess the farm-farmer situation and provide recommendations for

improvement.

METHODOLOGY

A farm managed by a household was identified. The farm was then visited, and the

farm owner, who also the farmer, was asked to be interviewed. Proper behaviour was

observed during the course of the interview process and the interaction with the farm owner.

Data such as description of the farm, farming system, management practices applied and

background of the household was determined. After the necessary data was gathered from

the farm owner, proper analytical tool were conceptualized and prepared.

Time and Place of the Interview

The farm owner was Lucila Villamayor Flores, 66 years of age. The farm was situated

at 11430 Dulong Puntod, Mayundon, Los Banos, Laguna. The interview proper was

conducted on April 11, 2016.

RESULTS AND DISCUSION

Farm Owner’s Profile

The farm owner Lucila Villamayor Flores, 66 years of age. Her swine farm is situated

beside her house which is at11430 Dulong Puntod, Mayundon, Los Banos, Laguna. She only

finished up until high school, and started helping her father manage their swine farm at the

age of 16. She is now married and has one child, who has already finished her studies and is

happily married. She obtained her initial knowledge on swine production from her parents.

And later on got additional knowledge from trainings, seminars, extension workers, books

and pamphlets,

Farm Description

Initially, the farm started with one gilt received from a family relative. Later on, she

was able to expand the farm with a population of 5 sows, however due to unforeseen

circumstances, the farm lost 3 sows. And currently, she has two sows and two grower-

finisher pigs.

The farm is relatively small with a land area of 12 meters by 5 meters. It has 3 pens

mainly constructed of concrete materials used as walls and flooring; it has an approximate

of 3 meters roof height using galvanized iron sheet as material for roofs. The animals were

distributed in the small building: the sows were housed on one pen and was separated by

individual cages; the other pens were used to house the weanlings and/or grower pigs.

Farm Management Practices

Animal Health. Piglets are given vitamin supplementation at 1 month after birth,

followed by a vaccination for Hog Cholera at 2 months of age. Other medications are given

depending on the health condition of the animals. Vaccination and medication is being

administered by the owner. When the animals are sick, appropriate medication is given

based on the knowledge of the farmer.

Feeding management. The animals are fed with commercial feeds mixed with rice

bran. When available, kitchen refuse and vegetables are also fed to the pigs to minimize the

cost of using commercial feeds. The type and feeding regimen of the animals are shown

below (Table 1 and 2):

Table 1. Type and Feeding Regimen for Breeder Animals

Breeders Type/Kind Amount Frequency Dry/Wet Area of feeding

Replacement

gilts/Dry sows

Mix of mash commercial

feeds with rice bran 1-2 kg

Twice or

thrice a day Wet Trough

Gestating sow Mix of mash commercial

feeds with rice bran 1-1.5 kg

Twice or


Lactating sow Mix of mash commercial


Twice or


Table 2. Type and Feeding Regimen for Grower Animals

Age (days) Type/Kind Amount Frequency Dry/Wet Area of feeding

1-30 Commercial feeds 0.5 kg Twice or

thrice a day Dry Trough

31-60 Mix of mash commercial

feeds with rice bran > 1.0 kg

Twice or




Twice or




Twice or


Breeding Management. The farmer choses her replacement stock based on the

availability of the pig and its physical traits and performance. She often acquires her

replacement stock from her neighbouring backyard farms. During the selection, she mainly

looks for the appearance of the legs, teats, body size, toes and vulva.

When she breeds her animals, she knows when the animal (sows), is ready for

breeding when: the vulva is swollen, watery secretion (mucus discharge) for 3-4 consecutive

days, and does not resists the boar. During the estrus cycle, she breeds her animals on the

3rd day. She uses the boar-for-hire service as the source of semen and pays the service done

for 600-700 pesos. She employs natural mating, and breeds her sow once every estrus

period. She can identify if the sow is pregnant if it does not show any sign of heat anymore.

Farrowing Management. When the time for the sows to give birth, she does not

deworm her sows nor does she transfers them in a farrowing crate. She anticipates farrowing

when the sows exhibits enlargement of the mammary gland and when the milk is oozing out

from the teats. The owner facilitates the farrowing of the animal and often obtains an average

litter size of the 8 piglets. However, she experience farrowing problems such as stillbirth and

mummified piglets. After the sows finishes farrowing, she disposes the placenta and other

farrowing wastes by burying them in the ground.

Litter Management. After the piglets are born, several management practices are

applied to them. The table below shows the common management practices in litter

management and which of the following does she apply to her piglets:

Table 3. Common Litter Management Practices applied to the farm.

Litter Management Practice Age done (days)

Cutting of the umbilical cord 1

Needle teeth cutting 1

Giving of artificial heat -

Injection of iron dextran 3-4

Identifying piglets -

Castration 14

Creep feeding 1-45

Fostering -

Giving of anti-scour -

Other Management Practices. She cleans the pigpens by spraying water and

scraping the manure. She does this 3-4 times a day, and disposes the manure either by

burying it in the ground or by recycling it as a fertilizer for her plants.

Marketing

She often sells her pigs as weanlings (45-60 days of age; approximately 50-60 kg)

however, when there are customers where prefer grower-finisher pigs (60-90 days of age;

approximately 80-60 kg), she keeps some of the piglets and sell them at the desired age of

the customer. She sells her weanling pigs at a per head basis, with a price of 2,000 pesos per

head. And she sells her grower-finisher pigs at a per kilo basis depending or current market

price. In addition to this, she sells her pigs, to middlemen or also known as viajeros and to

friends.

Problems

During the course of the interview, she identified her main problems encountered

during production. First, is the high cost of commercial feeds and availability of the feeds;

this resulted to her offering the pigs alternative feeds like rice bran, kitchen refuse and

vegetables. Another problem encountered is the outbreak and possible outbreak of disease

in the area. Consequently, making her pigs unprotected from diseases, and due to high cost

of medication she fails to medicate them properly. And lastly is the low market price; due to

this she could not properly compensate the expenses made in the farm.

Analysis

According to the interview, Tita Lucila is somewhat satisfied with their state of

livelihood. The farm is enough to provide them food. However, she also know that there still

lot to improve in their farm, and hopes to increase the farm and their income. Moreover,

during the course of the interview, we discovered that she does not employ a record keeping

system, thus, failure for us to conduct an economic analysis of her farm.

There is a need to properly utilize resources in the farm, as seen in Figure 1. It is

shown that the main and only source of income is from the selling of the weanling pigs and

grower-finisher pigs. And such income is used in many aspects, such as expenses for the

household, food for the household and feeds for the animals.

Figure 1. Flow of resources in Tita Lucila’s farm.

There is a lot of room for improvement of Tita Lucila’s farm. A SWOT-TOWS analysis

(Table 4) is thereby required to identify such and other possible solutions to further improve

the production. Since there are a lot of neighbouring backyard farms in the area, the farm

has an easy access to replacement stock, and furthermore, they could form a cooperative. In

contrary, this may also be a cause of an outbreak of a disease from the area provided that

there is no strict biosecurity measures implemented in the farm. In addition, her lack of

knowledge in advance swine production supresses her to further improve the performance

of her animals, consequently maximizing the full potential if her farm; thus increasing her

profit.

Food

Household

Left-over food

Weanlings & Grower-

Finisher pigs

Sows Manure

Income

Plants Household use Feeds

Table 4. SWOT-TOWS Analysis of Tita Lucila’s Farm.

STRENGTHS

*Readily available / easy

access to replacement

stock

*Use of manure as

fertilizer in ornamental

plants

*Available credit/loan

system

WEAKNESSES

*Lack of knowledge on proper

biosecurity measures,

advance feeding and

nutrition, breeding

management, and marketing

*High dependence on

commercial feeds

*Limited/inconsistent market

OPPURTUNITIES

*High market opportunities

*Enterprise integration

*Formation of association /

cooperative

S-O ANALYSIS

*Group buying of inputs

*Employ of integrated

(livestock-crop) system

W-O ANALYSIS

*Conduct training on proper

biosecurity measures,

advance feeding and

nutrition, breeding

management, and marketing

* Consolidate harvested pigs

thru the cooperative to attract

more buyers.

THREATS

*Low farm gate price of pigs

*Rising cost of inputs

(feeds, etc.)

*Residential are nearby the

farm

*Chance of an outbreak of a

disease from the area

S-T ANALYSIS

*Employ of integrated

(livestock-crop) system

*Invest in high quality

replacement stock

*Invest in biosecurity

inputs and preventive

medicine

W-T ANALYSIS

*Conduct training in on how

decrease production cost, but

still maintaining a high

quality produce

*Train on and Employ strict

biosecurity measures

OPTIONS

The farmer does not keep track of her expenses and income due to the lack or records.

Thus, we recommend her to keep organized records of the farm expenses and income. Swine

business, has a lot of market opportunities, however maximum profit could not be attained

due to the lack of advanced management techniques in raising pigs. So we also recommend

her to attend seminars on how the swine business should be managed properly. She should

be engaged and aware of what practices she would applying in her farm. And we also

recommend her to invest and apply new technologies such as proper health and sanitation

practices, biosecurity measures that would further improve the potential of the farm, and

less the cost of production. Moreover, since the swine business has a lot of market

opportunities, it tend to have a lot of competitions too. Learning new marketing strategies

would help her compete with her competitors. On the other hand, she could choose to join

or form a cooperative to increase marketability of her products and thus increasing her

income.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

We learned from our interview that she and her family depends solely on their

business to sustain their household’s needs. And we could also conclude that the farming

system employed by the backyard farm we chose is very typical and a little bit left behind.

The tools and techniques she uses and applies to her farm, is not that up-to-date. Moreover,

her farm management is not that effective thus, producing a low yield. She still has a lot to

improve; and the latest technologies in swine production and marketing could help her a

lot in maximizing the potential of her farm, and achieving maximum profit.

REFERENCES

BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. "Performance of Philippine Agriculture." Bureau

of Agricultural Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

<http://www.bas.gov.ph/?ids=agriperformance>.

DE VERA, B. O. 2014. Boom ups Filipinos’ per capita income at $2,765 in 2013; luxury

goods sale rising. Philippine Daily Inquirer.

http://business.inquirer.net/175464/boom-ups-filipinos-per-capita-income-at-

2765-in-2013-luxury-goods-sale-rising

Interview with Lucila Villamayor Flores on April 11, 2016.

THE PORK PRODUCTION COMMITTEE 2004. The Philippines recommends for pork

production. Los Baños, Laguna: PCARRD-DOST, 2006. 131p. – (Philippines

Recommends Series No. 13-D).

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AGRI 111 - Exercise 4 (Group Sci. Paper)