Philippines Books

Archive for January 17th, 2009

I always wonder why, with so many goats running around, nobody drinks goat’s milk or makes goat’s cheese? The Philippines are ripe for some Mediterranean or Middle Eastern migrant to come in, raise some goats an start making top class Fetta! I think with some marketing and education the locals could be made to try the products and then hopefully start to buy them. However the big money would have to be in exporting the dairy products.

Even with a professional, best-practise standard facility, it would be cheaper to raise the animals and make the dairy products, then export them to the Middle East, in the Philippines than many other places. Land, stock, overheads, labor… it is all so much cheaper.

I would find a cheap location, probably one that has some problems with the NPA (New People’s Army) and that would provide me with a location that is affordable and sure to have many people in the vicinity looking for employment. They would be rural folk who I could train to manage the basic tasks of animal husbandry and basic dairy production. Providing you took care of the staff the NPA would leave you alone as it would be counter to their stated manifesto to interfere. You might also find NPA activity would diminish once there are viable employment options available. When you can actually earn an income and feed your family there is less incentive to remain in a jungle camp wondering when the Army are going to come and bomb your ass.

You could arrange to agist the goats at several farms in the area, in fact every family could be issued a few to manage and then drive them to the dairy to be milked. You would need to oversee how they graze the animals and insist on a decent standard of fodder for your ruminants. As well as the dairy, you could butcher and produce goat meat small goods. Combine this with a rabbit farm and you are making some serious money, helping the impoverished rural people and earning export dollars. It can be done but of course, this being the Philippines it won’t be as easy as it is to write about it!