The Department of Agriculture (DAR) has urged the poultry farmers to organize themselves into clusters to avail their National Livestock Program and receive stocks of poultry animals.
DA Secretary William Dar said that the qualified beneficiaries of the program will have to organize into clusters, and they will receive initial stocks of poultry animals to raise and propagate as a source of food and sustainable income. He said that their agency instituted an expanded poultry production and livelihood program with an initial investment of P337million as part of the National Livestock Program.
“With this initiative, we aim to help farm families recover from the loss of jobs and unemployment due to Covid-19 pandemic, and those whose poultry stocks were depleted by avian influenza,” Secretary Dar said in a statement.
“The poultry subsector remains a major bright spot for spurring agricultural growth this year,” he further said.
The DA said that poultry production accounts for 13 percent of agriculture gross value added (GVA) and dressed chicken production in the Philippines surged 40 percent between 2009 and 2018, increasing from a million metric tons to 1.4 million.
In the second quarter of 2021, the poultry subsector also logged a 2.5 percent growth rate.
“The Philippine poultry sector performs a crucial function in our pursuit of agricultural development-where farmers and fishers can have the dignity of being self-sufficient even as all Filipinos are allowed access to adequate food,” the DA said in a statement.
Dar reported the DA’s plans and investments in the subsector including the establishment of postharvest and processing facilities.
This includes the P50-million cold storage and meat-cutting facility in Batangas and a P90-million meat-cutting plant and cold storage warehouse in Pampanga. They are also pushing for the establishment of the triple-A dressing plants in various parts of Luzon to address the supply chain in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.
“Right now, we have the chance to build on the progress that we have made in the nation’s poultry sector. We have a chance to strengthen our nation’s food security, grow the economy even faster, create jobs, and lift people’s incomes and prospects. We just have to make some sensible investment choices,” Secretary Dar said.