Growing organic chicken can be profitable

The island of Coron, which belongs to the Calamianes group of islands in the northernmost part of Palawan is famous for its rich and virginal marine resources but never for chicken.

In fact, the entire Palawan province has for decades been sourcing all its chicken and eggs from Manila, pushing the prices of these items very high. For the most part, Palawenos depend on their native chickens — with an indigenous breed called Parawakan — for much of their chicken meat and egg requirements.

Francisco Fernandez Jr. grew up to this reality and knew he had to do something to change the situation. So he decided to get into chicken farming, principally for layers or eggs, to provide a stable domestic source of chicken eggs in the province.

Using his father’s six-hectare farm, Fernandez decided on a breed to grow. It was a toss-up between sasso (a free-range dark chicken breed from a farming cooperative called SASSO in France) or kabir (supposed to come from Israel and is much like the poultry chicken except they are not locked in small cages but range within the pen).

He first read of sasso in an agriculture magazine then attended a seminar where Antonio Inocencio (the only licensed sasso breeder in the country) was the speaker. But he missed the lecture of Inocencio so he attended the talk on kabir by Elmer Permites. Still he was not convinced about getting into kabir. He went to Inocencio’s farm in Teresa, Rizal and there he learned a lot.

It took him some time to decide. He even surfed the net where he read about the health benefits and huge global market demand for sasso chicken because it is organic. When he finally decided, Inocencio went to France but he could not get any "intelligent advice" on how to start the sasso farm. Still, he bought the first batch of 500 sasso chicks ("too big for beginners," he said) from Inocencio’s farm in September 2002, which was then a rainy period. The result: 35 percent of the chicks died from cold weather.

Of the 500 chicks in the first batch, 400 were layers of which only 230 survived. He first sold the eggs in Coron hotels and restaurants, even in weddings. His father runs a tourist lodging which served sasso chicken and sasso eggs at a premium price. Then he ordered another set of chicks again, this time with the full guidance of Inocencio.

From the eggs that were produced by his farm, Fernandez’s wife, Lorna, an experienced marketer (having come from the Philippine Tourism and Convention Bureau) did tele-marketing to Rustan’s and Blue Kitchen (a weekend market) of Malou Forres, which has outlets in Shangrila Mall and Rockwell plus other independent distributors.

Rustan’s started in March 2004 getting eggs from Fernandez at 40 trays of 30 pieces per tray a week or 1,200 pieces. Rustan’s sells the egg for P12.50 a piece. This was doubled because of the huge orders from Rustan’s clients. Rustan’s puts its sticker, label and bar code on the eggs. Right now, Rustan’s is ordering for a lot more, he said.

With Blue Kitchen, Fernandez sells the eggs using his name, Keralu Farms. "We do the packaging and labeling at home," he said.

His farm now produces 7,000 to 8,000 eggs a month from the 500 layers. The chicks lay in 30 to 34 weeks. He has 350 layers that are expected to lay eggs within the year.

Now, whenever he buys his chicks from Inocencio he makes sure that half is male for dressed chicken and half layers, for egg production.

The wholesale price of dressed sasso is P165 per kilo but the retail can go as high as P230 per kilo in some stores, he said.

The Fernandez farm wants to expand production in the province by getting partners under a modified contract growing scheme, where he will provide them the breeds.

"In Palawan alone, the demand is so big I can hardly fill it up. The tourist establishments’ requirements are growing so fast and I am the only supplier in the province," he said.

He also supplies distributors in the Visayas and Mindanao, where dressed sasso costs as high as P250 per kilo as against the native chickens of P110 a kilo. The sasso he sells in Cebu and Bohol carries his labels.

Inocencio himself has gone through special grower tie-ups with beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and other organized farm communities and cooperatives in the country, thereby expanding his grower/production base of sasso throughout the Philippines.