Batangas Caravan

Extended trip around Batangas in April, culminating with the Lipa Seminar on April 28.

For the growers in the area, good opportunity for farm visits and questions answered.

We will also be in lookout for prospective dealers in the area for day old chicks. Contact us if interested.

Free Range In Nasugbu

We had been invited to market and supply Sunshine Chicken in SM Supermarket branches since last year. That was approved about October of last year, but logistics was wayward. Besides, growing chickens for the dressed market wasn't our line of business. Offering it to various growers was easier said than done as it will mean quality control and monitoring will require several crews.

Fate has it that SM Foundation contacts us again for their livelihood program. Several calls and a meeting set led us to schedule a seminar for their recipients.

WHAT: Raising Sunshine Chicken from day1 to Harvest
WHEN: March 27, Saturday, 9am
WHERE: SM Foundation Demo Farm, Sitio Pingkian, Barangay Looc (before the Hamilo gate)
Nasugbu, Batangas
WHO: Doc Rey

FREE as it is meant for SM Foundation, but they said it was OK for outsiders to attend.

Let's take this opportunity. See you there!

Batangas Seminar

We might be headed for Batangas on the 3rd week of September for a free seminar, hosted by LGUs.

Will keep you posted.

Batangas Visit

First on our agenda was to visit Rumandan Farms. It is literally a visit, because it is breeze dealing with this grower. From owner Gene, assistant Karen to farm manager Luis, it had always been easy transactions. Luis should find raising Sunshines "sisiw"....he was a Darag Coordinator for PCARRD for quite sometime and dealt with Doc Synan in the studies. He still maintained his Darag production, but as he says, the commercial quantity to serve consumers is still far, plus the fact that you can't predict harvest.

Until now, he gets and shares pointers with Doc Synan (grab a copy of Agriculture Magazine of Manila Bulletin for August 2008), making raising Sunshines easier for him.

Luis is in the process of opening a new range area and now plans to have a quadrant for every batch. He was surprised how this present batch of 200 wiped out grass in an area of 150sqm in less than 2weeks!

We didn't plan to have lunch there, but the aroma of kalderetang Sunshine from the kitchen, across the nipa hut where we sat, was calling or names distinctly. The fact that we hardly have rice with our meals, made the table spread seem too much. Well, the magic word was "seem"...na seemot ang table :)

We knew we will be there more often, after tasting Edwin's cooking and because they will load more chicks at more regular intervals.

Next stop was a farm near Malarayat Golf. Suggestions were made to correct feeding and housing as brooding stage wasn't managed well. But the chicks were so happy when we taught caretaker to chop a banana trunk and feed it to them...they were so excited.

Last stop was calling on dealers for the area as we had been getting a lot of inquiries from Batangas. We wanted to make sure that the link to the backyard farmers are established.

Breaktime

After the flurry of the 2nd INAHGEN, by 8pm we felt really drained. You can't speak because mouth is too dry, can't walk because legs hurt from all the standing, can't think because you are too sleepy.

Today, was no appointment day. No radio guesting, just rest. Well, rest meant going to the two locations of AANI at FTI and Circle to touch base with the clients there, lunch at Salcedo Weekend Market and having two cups of dirty ice cream. Incidentally, I had two huge glasses of Fruits in Cream Milkshakes last night...excuse for all the agri show work. Am so guilty after all the calories...but still tasted GOOD!

Tuesday, hopefully, we will be able to visit Sunshine Capon of Joey Rigor in Victoria, Tarlac. This early, his capons are gaining interest in the local market. Even the editor of Agriculture Magazine of Manila Bulletin, Zac Sarian, immediately set an interview with him when he heard about a Sunshine grower doing the capons.

By Wednesday, its off to Batangas to check out a project we have been invited to go look into. Training in agriculture. There will be different modules. End goal is to make it profitable for farmers. We had been asked to give the training on raising our Sunshines :) I guess it won't be different from what we are really doing already.

Biosecurity

We get requests to visit our breeder farm. Sorry, but for biosecurity reason, we do now allow visitors. It will be to your utmost interest, our clients, that we are able to maintain our breeders in top health. Even amongst us partners, we refrain from doing so, as we have one assigned to breeding anyway, while others are assigned to finance and marketing.

That is the main reason why we maintain our booths at AANI FTI, AANI Herbal Garden and Livelihood Center and our demo on urban farming at the rooftop of our Fairview outlet.

You will see us there and able to get one on one pointers in raising our Sunshine Chickens.

Periodically, we have our free seminars. If you want seminars in your area, coordinate with your local DA, Municipal officers etc and advise them that we may be contacted for FREE SEMINARS in your area.

Recent dispersals have been in CAR, Bicol and Batangas.

Let's work hand in hand with government to give us all, Sunshines on our tables and to help us in livelihood.

We didn't decide to call it Sunshine for nothing. Sunshine gives us freshness and hope...it doesn't cost a lot to raise Sunshines... let's not forget the health benefits and of course the taste. Lasang native!