Batanes leather makes its mark

BASCO, Batanes, Philippines - – Local cattle farmers have found a new way to increase their income from raising cattle, thanks to their provincial veterinarian.

Through the initiative of the provincial veterinary office, cow hide is no longer burned and sold as by-product of beef, but instead collected, preserved, stored and sent to a processing plant in Manila.

Provincial veterinarian Albert Tabile told The STAR the hide of one fully-grown cow, when processed, could bring additional income of as much as P20,000 to a farmer.

The hide yields one of the best quality leathers in the market, Tabile said, and are made into wallets and ladies’ bags.

The wallets that sell here for P700 and the bags for as much as P10,000 could easily pass as foreign-made.

Farmers here pasture their cattle until they are at least four years old, when they command higher prices. 

“What our local cattle raisers did not know when they sell their full grown cattle to the middlemen who bring them to Manila is that the cattle hide is not included in the pricing,” Tabile added.

“And to think that from the cattle hide alone, the middle man already earns P20,000, which should have gone to the cattle raiser himself,” the youthful veterinarian said.

A four-year old cow is sold for an average price of P40,000.

Tabile said his staff preserves the hides brought to them by salting, “just as in the olden days when there was no refrigeration yet.”

When the provincial veterinary office has collected a good number of hides, these are sealed in plastic drums and shipped to a leather manufacturing plant. The finished products find their way to malls in Metro Manila and to exporters.

 The office only deducts our actual expenses and the cattle owner gets the bigger share,” Tabile says.