Photo Release

Computing benefits for backyard hog-raisers: Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, during Thursday’s virtual hearing of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Agrarian Reform, January 13, 2022, on several bills to improve the livestock industry, asks the benefits that the backyard pig farmers would get from the interventions being undertaken by the agencies to address the issues besetting the country’s livestock industry. Pangilinan noted that backyard hog-raisers comprise the majority in the industry and yet there's no data showing how much they would earn from the programs to improve the production of pork meat. “Maybe we should review the whole approach to getting data especially when it comes to incomes. Because that's the gut issue. What's the point of all the interventions if we don't know, in the end, whether they're earning more or not. And we can’t know whether they're earning more or not if we don't know what they're earning to begin with? That has been, I think, historically the challenge to the agricultural sector. We're always focused on yields, we're focused on lowering the cost of production and yet we don't measure precisely what benefit it is especially to our poor farmers and fisherfolk,” Pangilinan said. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)