03 April 2024 – GUIMARAS. The majority of the livestock raised in Guimaras came from smallholder farms, accounting for 99.58% (30,302 heads), while 0.42% (127 heads) from semi-commercial farms, and none for commercial farms, disclosed by the livestock inventory as of January 1, 2024, conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Livestock raised in smallholder farms was consistently dominated by goats, accumulating to 71,414 heads, accounting for 41.16% percent, on average, for five comparative survey periods, January 1 (2020- 2024).

“The other 32.65 % and 26.19 % were counted in Cattle and Carabao with the accumulated inventory of 56,647 and 45,436 heads for the survey period January 1 of 2020- 2024, respectively,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said.

Comparing inventory of the survey period January 1 (2020-2024), goat inventory showed the highest growth rate on January 1, 2022, with 5.8%, from 13,014 heads in 2021 to 13,764 heads in 2022, while in the same year, Cattle and Carabao posted the lowest growth rate of -28.3% and -26.5%, respectively.

“Cattle showed the highest growth rate in 2021 with 1.6% from 14,194 heads in 2020 to 14,418 heads in 2021, while Carabao noted the highest percentage change in 2023 with -1.3% from 7,988 heads in 2022 to 7,882 heads in 2023”, Losare said.

The data showed that the number of Goats on smallholder farms posted an erratic inventory trend, while Carabao showed a decreasing trend from 2020 to 2024 of the January 01 survey periods.

“Cattle inventory showed an increment on January 1, 2021, with 14,418 heads from 14,194 heads on January 1, 2020, then a continuous fall was noticed until the survey period of 2024 on January 1”, she added.

Meanwhile, from 2020 to 2023, there was no record of animals raised on either semi-commercial or commercial farms but in the survey period of January 1, 2024, there were 127 heads of cattle or 0.42% of the total were raised on semi-commercial farms, while no record of animals raised on commercial farms.