 | Self Intro |
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Good day everyone...! I am Mario C. Valdez , 55 years old, a fruit and orgranic vegetable farmer from Sitio Apoler, Brgy. Tobuan, Labrador, Pangasinan, and now seriously hoping to become a successful slaughter goat farmer/ entrepreneur someday. My wife Emily (a volunteer Day Care Teacher in our Barangay) and I became interested in goat raising about one-and-a-half years ago after attending one of the seminars of Pangkat Kaunlaran (DZMM/ABS-CBN’s Agri Radio Program) where I met Mr. Ben Rara of the Federation of Goat and Sheep Raisers in the Philippines. I was then invited by Mr. Rara to visit him in his farm in Pandi, Bulacan and after conducting my own researches, I became convinced that starting a slaughter goat farm is a lot easier and cheaper endeavor to go into as compared to other livestock ventures. With proper housing using locally available materials and having an abundant supply of feed resources (e.g. kakawati, ipil-ipil, malunggay, katuray, maize, cassava, etc.) aside from grass and many other green roughages naturally available in our farm, we were able to slowly increase the size of our herd from one to ten heads of goats (3 does, 3 bucks, 3 doelings and 1 buckling) in just over a year (14 months). I am hoping to further increase the number of does that we now have to about twenty-five heads in the very near future through an agriclutural loan and maybe by convincing some relatives and close friends to invest into our goat raising venture. Likewise, I hope to be able to upgrade the breed of our stocks by applying for an imported/pure breed buck loan from the goverment (DA-BAI) and hopefully be able to produce/breed triple cross goats someday. Marketing of goats is quite easy in our locality. Aside from the usual high demand for chevon meat during special occasions/celebrations, we are also fortunate to enjoy brisk sales during the rainy season because our fisherman friends are able to offer the goats to the Filipino crew (seamen) of mostly international cargo ships who temporarily seek refuge inside Lingayen Gulf whenever a storm/typhoon enters the vicinity of the Northern/Central Luzon area (panahon ng barkohan). I would like to thank the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and PCARRD for the free online goat courses (Goat 1 up to Goat 4) that I have all completed as of this time. I have really learned a lot and the lecture series have given me the confidence to properly go about our goat farming venture. I hope that all the other courses on “Artificial Insemination(AI) for Goats, Slaughtering and Cutting Standards for Goats, Raising Halal Goats, etc.” would all be made avilable in your e-school very soon. Thank you again and more power to ATI/PCARRD...! Mabuhay po kayo...!  |
 | Re: Self Intro |
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Hi Sir Mario, we admire your interest in agriculture, especially in goat farming. We are also grateful for your kind words. This will serve as an inspiration to all of us especially our courseware developers and subject matter experts that provided their time expertise for the development of theses courses. See you online Sir! :) |
