Honoring PH dairy farmers: Nueva Ecija buffalo cited in ‘Kalabaw Cup’

This carabao named “Leonora” is named top dairy buffalo for yielding more than 3,000 liters of milk within 10 months. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ — Leonora was in Quezon town in Nueva Ecija province, some 30 kilometers away, unaware of the accolades she got last week from 500 farmers and dairy operators here.

A dairy buffalo, Leonora produced up to 18 liters of milk a day or a total of 3,364.5 liters during a 10-month lactation period that provided her 44-year-old owner, farmer Rogelio Marquez, an income of P149,670.

Marquez was this year’s recipient of the Gintong Kalabaw Cup for his outstanding carabao in the 3rd National Carabao Conference held here on Nov. 27-28.

Leonora got her name in appreciation of her “beauty” and “domesticity,” said Marquez. The carabao gave birth to a female calf a year ago on Nov. 30 — her fourth calving.

Even in her dry months of lactation, her milk yield never went down to 10 liters daily.

The ex-farm price of carabao’s milk in Quezon town is P45 a liter. Elsewhere, prices range from P60 to P80 a liter in raw form.

Aside from her milk yield, Leonora was judged for her body conformation (symmetry, size and shape) which is ideal for a milking carabao.

The other awardees were Henry Orbito of Calinog, Iloilo province, as the outstanding dairy buffalo farmer (small hold category), Victoriano Dumale of Barangay Licaong, Science City of Muñoz, as the outstanding buffalo farmer (family module), Samuel Mercader of San Jose City in the semicommercial category, and Emily Velasco, also of San Jose City, as the “modelong Juana sa kalabawan (model woman in carabao dairying).”

Dumale and his family earned P70,000 a month from their five dairy buffaloes, while Orbino grossed P354,314.80 from the milk yield of his two buffaloes.

Mercader, who started raising a dairy buffalo in 2000, has 32 animals, of which 14 were mature females, a senior bull, four heifers, and nine calves. The stock earned more than enough to finance the education of his four daughters.

Patrick Pascual of Sto. Domingo town in Nueva Ecija was awarded the “modelong kabataan sa kalabawan (model youth in carabao dairying),” while the Eastern Multipurpose Cooperative of San Jose City was given the best dairy cooperative award.

The Eastern Multipurpose Cooperative has 432 dairy buffaloes and has combined milk harvest of 145,099.65 liters in 91 lactating animals in a year (P7,254,982.50 at P50 a liter). It also runs its own milk processing plant and marketing outlet.