TARLAC CITY — A total of 514 goat raisers in Tarlac graduated from the “SaGOAT Kita! Swak na Pamamaraan sa Paghahayupan!” a School-on-the-Air on Goat Production Technology of Agricultural Training Institute (ATI).
“The participants are from the 17 municipalities and 1 city in the province and they have undergone 10 episodes of the radio program which featured discussions on goat breeds, animal husbandry, goat selection, breeding and record-keeping, health management, common diseases, nutrition and other relevant topics on goat farming,” ATI Regional Center Director Veronica Concepcion Esguerra said.
Other modules in the program include meat hygiene practices, marketing and value-adding, traits of an agri-preneur, and opportunity assessment and identification.
“We hope that through this program, we were able to capacitate farmers on the latest technologies on goat farming to increase their production and apply all the knowledge gained in this farming system,” she added.
In behalf of the beneficiaries, a 71-year-old farmer Jaime Damasco shared his insights on the implementation of the program in the province.
“Through this program we were able to strengthen our knowledge on goat farming especially those who are not that knowledgeable in the industry. It was also relevant because we were oriented on the significant topics more importantly the proper medication and sanitation,” Damasco added.
“We hope that the government will continue to support the agriculture sector especially those who are starting out in the industry,” he added.
After six months, ATI will monitor the implementation of the program through the State Universities that will conduct the result evaluation to see if there are technology adoption, improvement in income and production.