Behind every ground of success are stories of humble beginnings, countless challenges and lessons learned through the process. One of which is of the Caridad Hog Raisers Association (CHRA) which has encountered numerous setbacks before finally emerging as one of the successful enterprises in the Visayas at present.

Starting off as backyard raisers, the community-based farm workers association located in Hacienda Caridad Uno of Barangay Luna, Cadiz City, Negros Occidental aimed at improving their lives and augmenting their families’ income when they first resorted to swine fattening. However, in 2013, Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan), left a huge damage to their livelihood, immensely affecting their productivity due to the ruined breeding pens.

With its thrust of enabling communities and expanding opportunities, the Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) provided assistance to CHRA and helped the association start anew in 2017. The P563,040-worth of financial aid enabled them to put up new pens and to complete two cycles in a year since the outset of the subproject implementation.

“We only started as 30 members and we gradually grew to 51 members after three years since our implementation. The first two cycles in 2017 had been a big help in sustaining our daily needs and in supporting the education of our children. In fact, we gave as high as P6,000 dividend for each member during our first year operation,” said Wilma Dignos, Project Manager of CHRA.

While the operation has been doing well, another challenge came in 2018 with the outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in the country. There was a scarcity of piglets which resulted to a decrease in the number of live hogs being sold by the association.

The area which will be utilized as fattening area, feeds storage, and office space of CHRA for the upscaling of their enterprise.

“During this year, the market of our liveweight fatteners declined due to the ASF scare. The traders bought them in a really low price. This is when our group decided to open up a meat shop in order to cater our own produce,” shared Dignos.

She said they have ensured the provision of quality product and service to the buyers so they held a customer service orientation among its meat shop staff. This posted a favorable outcome as they were able to gain regular customers.

“Fortunately, we were able to earn regulars who frequent our shop because of the quality meat we sell. We also made sure to equip our staff with strategies in delivering the best service among our customers through an orientation.”

The opening of the meat shop also made their business eventually get back on the grind in the year 2019. However, such feat seemed to be passing when the global health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, has stricken the country in 2020. This called another challenge for them to increase their number of sows in order to supply the demands for their meat shop.

“It is truthfully challenging to continue our operations in the midst of the pandemic. We are short of supply of the fatteners so we opted to buy from other backyard raisers in our neighboring towns for the consumption of our meat shop,” Dignos emphasized.

Becoming one the suppliers of the local hospital used as quarantine facility in Cadiz City, the association was able to generate sales amounting to P9 million but almost P7 million of which was paid to the swine raisers at the backyard level where the live hogs were procured.

Furthermore, the ASF outbreak resurfaced in the same year, displacing the market system of swine industry in most parts of the country. This as well affected the association wherein the gross sales increased but the net income is still low. Thus, in order to address such concern, a new business plan was submitted to the PRDP for the upscaling of the existing Swine Fattening Enterprise into Caridad Swine Production and Marketing of Pork Products. Reincorporated in the plan are the breeding, auction of fattened swine, and marketing of pork products where the fattened swine will be slaughtered to be sold as choice pork cuts in the city of Cadiz.

“The upgrading of this enterprise will address the interventions identified in the Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP) of Negros Occidental. We already have target markets for this and we are hopeful that we could uplift the living and socio-economic conditions of the members of this association who are mostly sugarcane workers and women with the implementation of this subproject,” said Dr. Narissa Lemoncito, Head of the Provincial Project Management and Implementing Unit (PPMIU) in Negros Occidental.

“The upgrading of this enterprise will address the interventions identified in the Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP) of Negros Occidental. We already have target markets for this and we are hopeful that we could uplift the living and socio-economic conditions of the members of this association who are mostly sugarcane workers and women with the implementation of this subproject,” said Dr. Narissa Lemoncito, Head of the Provincial Project Management and Implementing Unit in Negros Occidental.

The proposal has initially got a nod with the issuance of No Objection Letter 1 (NOL 1) and is currently waiting for the issuance of NOL 2. Lemoncito said the upgrading of the project is expected to benefit the entire country amid the current situation, most especially those ASF-stricken areas.

“Once we receive the NOL 2, we will proceed with the procurement and downloading of funds for the first tranche of the subproject implementation. This will be of great help in alleviating the impacts of this pandemic and the ASF outbreak in other regions or provinces. We could not only help the province of Negros but also the whole country, particularly Metro Manila and Cebu.”

On the other hand, Dignos assured that they are observing the biosecurity measures in line with the spread of ASF to secure the swine industry in the province.

“Now that ASF is nearing in our portals, it is important that we observe the biosecurity measures. From the beginning, we do not do swill feeding and only give the quality feeds to our fatteners. We also procure our fatteners from our nearby towns,” she explained.

Currently, the association is on its 11th cycle since the onset of the PRDP project and has recently held the groundbreaking of their office space, feeds storage, and fattening area as their infrastructure equity for the upscaling of their enterprise which is worth P15 million. A total of P118,000 were also availed by the members as dividends distributed during their general assembly this year.

CHRA as well plans to become a cooperative as they are now applying for registration at the Cooperative Development Authority to further strengthen their association.

“For us who were able to sail through after all the unfortunate events, I believe that our commitment, honesty, integrity, and transparency as an association will lead us through in surpassing all the circumstances. We are wholeheartedly thankful to the PRDP for the trust and rest assured that we will continue to unite in order to cultivate our enterprise in the years to come,” said Dignos as an end note.
Despite the odds brought by time, the CHRA prepares to embark a new journey of turning the new opportunity opened by the PRDP into reality. They stood unfazed, resilient, and grander amongst the challenges. If they will continuously work hand in hand, in a synchronized pace, their association will continue to thrive in the years to come- the outlook is inevitably good.(April Grace Padilla, RPCO 6, Writer)