Animal Probiotic Adoption in Selected Commercial Layer Farms in San Jose, Batangas

Date

12-2019

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness Management

College

College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Glenn N. Baticados

Committee Member

Nanette A. Aquino, Mar B. Cruz, Agnes T. Banzon, Normito R. Zapata, Jr.

Abstract

This study focused on animal probiotic adoption in selected commercial layer farms in San Jose, Batangas. Specifically, the study aimed to a) present the profile of the farm manager/caretaker and the profile of the selected layer farms in San Jose, Batangas, b) determine the animal probiotics use through current brands and volume of animal probiotics used, the extent of usage and costs of animal probiotics, c) determine the level of awareness and perception, level of adoption, and decision-making process among the selected commercial layer farms in San Jose Batangas in relation to probiotic usage, d) identify the different factors that affect the adoption of animal probiotics, e) assess the prospects with regards to probiotics adoption, and f) provide recommendations on how to address the problems.

There is a total of eight respondents for this study. The profile of the respondents were separated for user and non-users of animal probiotics. The majority of the users of animal probiotics (40%) have ages ranging from 31-15 and 66.67% for the non-users of animal probiotics. Most of the animal probiotics users are male (40%) and there is only one female animal probiotics user respondent. For the non-users, most of them are also malae (66.67%). The male users of animal probiotics are all married (80%) and the female respondent is single. The same pattern cam be observed for the non-users where 66.67% is married and the female is also single. All the animal probiotics users attended school but only one user finished college while most of them finished high school (60%) and the remaining respondent took up a vocational course while all the non-users graduated college.

Based on the respondents, the market leader in terms of number of serviced farms, and the volume of sales is the brand “Gut Bio Balance” with a total of 2,501 kilograms and the main reason for this is the ability of the distributors to convince the farm owners of the effectiveness of their products.

Using the decision-making process, the key decision-maker as to whether to adopt probiotic products into the layer farms were identified as the farm owners. It has also been determined that the ability to influence this decision would depend on the veterinarian as well as the farm caretaker/manager if they are a relative of the owner.

Factors affecting animal probiotic adoption were identified as perceived relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability and triability. According to the respondents, 75% believed that animal probiotics improve gut health, 37.5% believed that it reduced mortality rate and that it improves the fecal matter of the layer birds (25%). In addition, 62.5% stated that it improved the farm’s performance and 25 % believed it improved eggshell quality. For compatibility, the five users of animal probiotics for their layer farm (62.5%) believed that by using animal probiotics, it increased the egg production of their layers, therefore, increasing the profits of the farm. The non-users of animal probiotics (37.5) does not think that the use of animal probiotics significantly increases the egg production of the farm. They treat animal probiotics as an additional expense of the farm that is the reason why they did not adopt animal probiotics. For complexity, it showed that three out of five animal probiotics user prefer the feed premix powder form which does not require additional labor for the workers. Observability attribute showed that, 6 out of 8 respondents said they are satisfied with regards to the performance of animal probiotics as a product because of seeing positive results such as reduced mortality rate and improved farm performance. Triability showed that 7 out of 8 respondents said that their farm first conducted a trial before fully adopting animal probiotics. The five respondents said that they continued to use animal probiotics, however, the two respondents said they did not proceed with the adoption of animal probiotics as instructed by the farm owner. As for the main barrier in animal probiotic adoption, is organizational with price as main consideration. The problems faced in animal probiotic adoption are poor product performance and delayed shipments. The prospect of animal probiotic adoption is the increased demand of organic food, which are antibiotics-free has gained more attention in the past years which could increase demand of animal probiotics. The demand could further increase if the Philippines will strictly implement the regulation of antibiotics use as growth promoters or its sub-therapeutic use as mentioned earlier.

The steps that the distributors could take to improve the chances of product adoption are: 1) Conducting seminars about the benefits of animal probiotic usage on their livestock, effects of animal probiotic usage on the volume of production, farm performance and the potential generated income of the farm; 2) Providing free samples; 3) Setting up of warehouse for products; 4) Providing technical assistance and business consultation; 5) Providing bulk order discounts; and 6) Partnering with layer farm veterinary consultants.

Language

English

LC Subject

Poultry farms, Poultry industry--Philippines, Probiotics

Location

UPLB College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Call Number

LG 993 2019 M17 A33

Notes

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Document Type

Thesis

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