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Mobilizing the Agricultural Colleges and Universities in Accelerating Agriculture and Fishery Productivity, Job Generation and Income: Goat Upgrading and Production


State colleges and universities (SCUs) like Central Luzon State University (CLSU) are recognized as generators or sources of technologies to improve agricultural productivity. However, the efforts of SCUs are not well recognized by the target clienteles. Hence, this project is being implemented by the Small Ruminant Center (SRC) of CLSU through the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR) in recognition of the important role of SCUs in enhancing agricultural productivity and to reach out to more farmers particularly in goat production. The goat upgrading and production aimed to improve the performance and productivity of indigenous stocks through upgrading technology and increase the population of genetically-superior stocks. Moreover, the project aimed to increase income of goat raisers by at least 30 percent, accelerate technology adoption, and promote goat farming as an important component of the farming system to enhance sustainable agriculture. There were 25 breeder does and one buck acquired by SRC at the initial stage of the project. Progenies are disposed to target clienteles nationwide to upgrade their native stocks. Six trainings were conducted to promote upgrading technology and enhance farmers’ knowledge and capability in raising goats. After one year of implementation, 137 raisers benefited from the project. They were divided into three groups, namely; Science City of Munoz (SCM); cooperative members (CM), and SRC cooperators (SRCC). About 45 percent or 62 beneficiaries (28 from SCM, 30 from CM and 4 from SRCC) have completed the requirements prior to dispersal of breeder stocks. Animal shelter and forage production area were constructed after the training, manifestations of the raisers’ eagerness to improve goat farming. A basket of technology options consisting of pure confinement, proper housing, controlled breeding, and intensified use of multipurpose tree legumes as feeds, rapid rotational grazing, urea-molasses mineral block supplementation, strategic deworming, and integration with crops were recommended and are being adopted by raisers. Three-fold increase in offsprings and income from goat raising are expected.

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