Cotabato farmers gets breeder livestock

COTABATO CITY – The Cotabato provincial government and the Department of Agriculture-12 (DA 12) facilitated the dispersal of P1.3 million worth of livestock to farmers from Monday to Wednesday .

Matalam Vice Mayor Ralph Ryan Rafael said on Thursday up to 110 farmers in their municipality benefitted from the dispersal of goats by the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist under Gov. Emmylou Mendoza and DA-12.

“It’s a big, big help to our farming constituents,” Rafael said.

More than 200 other Moro and non-Moro farmers in Cotabato’s Carmen and Arakan towns also received goats that they can breed during the three-day dispersal activities.

Farmers in Matalam, Carmen and Arakan rely largely on propagation of hybrid corn and other short-term crops and vegetables as main sources of income. 

“Now they shall have an alternative source of income by raising livestock,” Rafael said.

A Moro farmer, Odin Samsudin, said he shall keep all the female offspring, for breeding purpose, from the doe and buck he got from the Cotabato provincial government last Tuesday.

“We are happy to have benefited from this animal dispersal activity of our provincial government and DA-12,” Samsudin said in Filipino, in a Maguindanaon accent. 

Cotabato province covers 17 towns and more than 40 barangays in its capital, Kidapawan City, where about 70 percent of residents are farmers.

Mendoza, who, as governor, is also chairperson of the Regional Development Council-12, said her office shall soon expand its livestock dispersal in other municipalities under her jurisdiction.

“We shall do more of that in the coming months as a tie-up program of our provincial government and the DA-12 and its central office,” Mendoza said. (John Felix Unson)

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