The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation produce a global report on farming.
It looks forward about 10 years and will give you an idea of what the expert view is on future trends.
See how the Philippines’ poultry trade lines up with other Asian economies…
“Production of eggs, pork and poultry is projected to expand annually by 1.3% in Paraguay, 2.1% in Peru, and 1.9% in Viet Nam, 2.2% in Indonesia and 2.0% in the Philippines.”
“[Increasing meat production – ] Philippines and Viet Nam – due to rapidly increasing domestic demand“
The Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) is the official office of national statistics for the Philippines.
Their job is to “…collect, compile, analyse and publish statistical information on economic, social, demographic, political affairs and general affairsof the people of the Philippines.” (Source)
And, yes – they have ALL the agri data too, of course, this includes poultry and eggs.
As a soon-to-be poultry farmer in the Philippines, the news is…
…you’ve got internal competition, AND…
…foreign import competition too.
Recently, Quezon Rep. of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food – Mark Enverga, was quoted as saying:
“The poultry producers [in the Philippines] deserve to be heard and be assured that the government is doing its share to combat the problem arising from high levels of importation of poultry’s products, while we are experiencing an oversupply of broilers in the market, he added.” (Source)
The Philippines (just like any country) has its own internal Government targets and policies on imports.
Import duties or tariffs are often used as a means of artificially loading the costs of imported goods…to favour homegrown produce, by price benefit.
Here’s a couple of recent USEFUL articles to help you learn this topic:
Pro-tip: to find more of these useful threads type this phrase into Google Search:
‘poultry farming reddit inurl:’philippines’
2. Choose your model
Your first decision is choosing your business model.
What style of poultry enterprise do you want to have?
They all have their appeal, in a way, but the choice is definitely one of preference.
Here’s my list:
Independent
Go it alone – truly a DIY approach to starting a poultry business.
High risk/reward.
You take all the risk, but then again you don’t share any profits either (maximum reward).
Pros – sovereignty to make your own decisions, greater earnings…
Cons – nothing ready-made for you, time and money spent ‘working things out’ already solved by established operators…
Co-Op
Join forces with other producers to magnify bargaining power in your market.
Also,
Benefit from shared economies of scale and efficiencies that would be otherwise lost as an independent.
Pros – lean on founders for the benefit of their experience and expertise, lower input costs
Cons – joint venture weaknesses, your produce in tied u pin forward obligations with the Co-Op
Contract Poultry
Sign up to serve a ready-made poultry outfit that will supply your farm with optimal input,
As well as, buy 100% of your stock at the point of fulfilment.
Pros – everything but keeping the chickens is done for you
Cons – it’s not your business…your farm is really ‘owned’ by them (what they say goes), tournament pricing
Joint Venture Poultry
Innovative and works to mutual strengths.
One business feeds another one just where they both need it the most.
Pros – more focus on what you do best, shared collaborative insights
Cons – very fragile because success depends a lot on strategic alignment, can be costly to duplicate communications
Franchise
You buy the license to trade under the name of an existing and established poultry brand.
They provide you with reputational headstarts and a tried business model.
Pro – they give you a winning formula, lose no time dreaming up a brand etc.
Cons – still require HUGE effort to make ‘their way’ succeed for you, large capital outlay to recoup from ‘go’
Buy a poultry farm in the Philippines
Take on a going concern as is and steer it into increasing rounds of profit.
Pros – business is already trading, has some trading footprint already
Cons – can be VERY difficult to see if it is actually making money, independent valuation
3. Choose your market
Finding your niche in the poultry market is critical.
The goal is:
Moving away from the price wars of commodity trade,
And fitting in where your customers don’t care about price but want to award you with their vote of confidence.
How is it done?
Discover the need.
Investigate the crux problems of poultry buyers in A-Z scenarios and make a plan to serve the need.
This is PROFITABLE business planning.
For example,
This article talks of such an UNTAPPED poultry demand in the Philippines:
“There is a big potential niche market for native chickens that is waiting to be tapped.
We were talking with a consultant of a big chain of restaurants and he was bewailing the difficulty in sourcing native chickens that are more or less uniform in size and meat quality.” (Source)
Which brings us on to…
4. Find out what consumers want
The key to starting a successful poultry business in the Philippines (or anywhere) is:
Finding out what customers want.
This drives transactions.
Customers pay for having their problem solved.
They don’t pay for ‘good’ or even ‘great’ products and services.
Also, there are government incentives that poultry farmers can register to benefit from like this one:
Selected farmers receive native breed, free-range chickens and feed from the DA:
“This after the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Central Visayas delivered and turned over to each of the farmers’ organizations some 50 pullets (young hen) and 10 cockerels (young rooster) of upgraded free-range chickens with two sacks of feeds under the Expanded Livestock and Poultry Production and Livelihood Project…”
Offering your household more food security and additional income:
“In a statement on Friday, Dr. Zeam Voltaire Amper, DA-7 livestock program coordinator, said that this project would enable the farmer-household beneficiaries to produce their own food and have the opportunity to raise additional income for their families.”
14. Training
The humble agricultural bulletin is one of the oldest, yet GOLDEN, methods of learning farming.
Deciding on the type of poultry business to run can be difficult as a beginner.
Becoming familiar with “…what kind of farms exist and for what reasons…” grows your confidence to make the right choice.
Here’s a quick list to help you on your way:
Breeder:
holds pure stock for the purpose of breeding specific lines of bird to meet commercial demand.
Hatchery:
hatches select breeds of birds and sell either eggs or day-old chicks to farmers.
Rearing:
raises day-old chicks through a variety of ages and sell live birds to farmers.
Layer egg farm:
rears specialist egg-laying birds, either from day-old chick or 16-18 week old (Point of Lay, PoL) for optimal performance i.e. most, high-quality eggs at a profit, and sells them
Broiler meat farm:
grows table meat birds taken from day-old chick up until they reach a marketable weight, usually 6-7 weeks, hence 45 days chicken – and sold
Packer:
buys eggs wholesale from farmers and packages them for resale
Equipment vendor:
buys poultry farming equipment like feeders and drinkers from manufacturers and sells them on
Agent:
arranges deals to supply business buyers with wholesale eggs or chicken meat and takes a commission for his sales effort
Feed miller:
takes bear grain and other ingredients and mills them to produce poultry farm feed rations for layer and broiler farms
Native breeds: breed local birds and selling to niche buyers
Local chicken breeds can be very profitable to raise.
You can find some restaurant clients willing to pay premium prices for the right product.
This is a comprehensive guide to the most popular native breeds of chicken in the Philippines:
lay about 360 eggs each in their 72-week commercial laying cycle
have a 92% survival rate throughout the rearing cycle
peak egg weight during 72-week production is 65.5 g
19. Production modelling
Beyond the performance capacity of the individual bird,
Your profits in poultry farming rest in engineering the optimal poultry production model.
What is this?
It’s basically taking the capacity of each bird and multiplying it until you get your desired output of eggs or meat.
Mathematical problem solving (with financial management accounting).
For example,
When you buy a new batch of day-old layer chicks,
They need to be raised for 17 weeks before you can expect your 1st egg.
Also, when a flock reaches 72 weeks of age they get culled.
In both cases, if this was your only flock – your business would have a pause in cash flow…
…whilst you wait for your new replacement flock to become productive i.e. 17 weeks.
What’s the answer to keeping your cash flow consistent?
Adopt a multiple-flock production model.
Pro-tip: I recommend subscribing to my premium email newsletter series (subscribers only), called Poultry Project Reporter.
(I publish every email as a PDFversion in the archive.)
These are emails are the most deteiled deep dive analysis of common layer and broiler production systems. Including profit calculations and investment projections – like in the screenshot above.
They are the eyes, ears, hands and feet of the operation…
…making sure every ounce of input gets converted into optimal output.
23. Pricing and value proposition
Don’t get sucked into thinking the cheapest chicken or eggs on the market attract the most sales.
It’s not so,
With a greater demonstration of value, price becomes of lesser importance (always) in buseinss.
In other words,
People don’t mind paying more – when they see what is on offer being far in excess of the value of the cost.
This quote from an organic free-range farmer in the Philippines, says it all:
“Organic free-range chicken meat is a premium item, but production must always comply with strict standards,” explains Emer.
“Feeds can’t contain animal protein so we make a special mixture of corn, soy and vegetable pellets.
We don’t use antibiotics or growth hormones, so our brown broilers take a longer time to reach a live weight of 1.5kg to 2kg – about 75 days compared to the 28-day-old chickens produced by factory farms.
Still, our chickens retail for much more – up to 400 pesos or US$8 per kilogram compared with around 120 pesos or $2.5 for non-organic chicken, so the extra time, effort and love we give them pays dividends.
This is very informative, I want to start my poultry business soon in the Philippines.
BCK27