UNDERSTANDING FARMING CIRCUMSTANCES1

Lenitta Lopez
Donnalyn Magat
Cris Pullan
Group 1 Section B-1L

April 19, 2016

1A

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

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 Owners 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 growerfinisher 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
Replacement
gilts/Dry sows
Gestating sow
Lactating sow

Type/Kind
Mix of mash commercial
feeds with rice bran
Mix of mash commercial
feeds with rice bran
Mix of mash commercial
feeds with rice bran

Amount
1-2 kg
1-1.5 kg
2-3 kg

Frequency
Twice or
thrice a day
Twice or
thrice a day
Twice or
thrice a day

Dry/Wet

Area of feeding

Wet

Trough

Wet

Trough

Wet

Trough

Dry/Wet

Area of feeding

Dry

Trough

Wet

Trough

Wet

Trough

Wet

Trough

Table 2. Type and Feeding Regimen for Grower Animals

Age (days)
1-30

Type/Kind

Amount

Commercial feeds

0.5 kg

Mix of mash commercial

31-60

feeds with rice bran

Mix of mash commercial

61-90

feeds with rice bran

91-120

Mix of mash commercial

feeds with rice bran

> 1.0 kg
1-2 kg
2-3 kg

Frequency
Twice or
thrice a day
Twice or
thrice a day
Twice or
thrice a day
Twice or
thrice a day

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

Needle teeth cutting

Giving of artificial heat

Injection of iron dextran

Identifying piglets
Castration
Creep feeding

3-4
14
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.

Food

Household

Weanlings & GrowerFinisher pigs

Income

Left-over food

Sows

Manure

Feeds

Household use

Plants

Figure 1. Flow of resources in Tita Lucilas farm.

There is a lot of room for improvement of Tita Lucilas 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.

Table 4. SWOT-TOWS Analysis of Tita Lucilas Farm.

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

*Readily available / easy

*Lack of knowledge on proper

access to replacement

biosecurity measures,

stock

advance feeding and

*Use of manure as

nutrition, breeding

fertilizer in ornamental

management, and marketing

plants

*High dependence on

*Available credit/loan

commercial feeds

system

*Limited/inconsistent market

OPPURTUNITIES

S-O ANALYSIS

W-O ANALYSIS

*High market opportunities

*Group buying of inputs

*Conduct training on proper

*Enterprise integration

*Employ of integrated

biosecurity measures,

*Formation of association /

(livestock-crop) system

advance feeding and

cooperative

nutrition, breeding
management, and marketing
* Consolidate harvested pigs
thru the cooperative to attract
more buyers.

THREATS

S-T ANALYSIS

W-T ANALYSIS

*Low farm gate price of pigs *Employ of integrated

*Conduct training in on how

*Rising cost of inputs

(livestock-crop) system

decrease production cost, but

(feeds, etc.)

*Invest in high quality

still maintaining a high

*Residential are nearby the

replacement stock

quality produce

farm

*Invest in biosecurity

*Train on and Employ strict

*Chance of an outbreak of a

inputs and preventive

biosecurity measures

disease from the area

medicine

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 households 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-at2765-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 Baos, Laguna: PCARRD-DOST, 2006. 131p. (Philippines
Recommends Series No. 13-D).

PHOTO DOCUMENTATION