On average, a female carabao lactates for 10 months, followed by two months when she is dry.
And for Leoncio Callo, 49, the drought came at a crucial time. "Five of my cows simultaneously stopped producing milk, so my son was forced to quit college this semester for the time being, for lack of money," he says. "He’s helping with farm work now."
"We had money for tuition but not for his daily transportation and allowance," he adds. "I’ve been milking cows continuously for five years each and every day, and this is the first time that they went dry all at the same time."
There were hard times before when tuition money was needed and he was forced to sell even a female calf, which is highly valued for its potential milk. A five-month-old female is easy to sell, he says, even at P15,000, compared with a male of the same age which goes for P10,000.
This time, the only calf in the farm is too young to sell.
The Science City of Muñoz, situated 147 km North of Manila, is the acknowledged center of agricultural research and technology in Central Luzon. With its rich topography and tropical climate, it is now home to the premiere agricultural centers committed to the production of information and technological breakthroughs to promote rural development, productivity and food security.
From its lowly origins as “Sitio Papaya”, it was rechristened as Muñoz in 1886 in honor of Spanish Governor Don Francisco Muñoz. It was in 1913, under Executive Order No. 72, wherein Muñoz was declared as a new and independent municipality.
With a bustling market center wherein rice trading was a major economic activity, it has metamorphosed into its present stature, unprecedented in the annals of the country as a Science City by virtue of Republic Act 8977 on December 9, 2000.
The overriding objective of transforming Muñoz into a center of science and technology, trade, commerce and agro-industry is now achievable as the city is now financially sound to implement and translate into reality its conceptualized framework of total development.
Being a science city, Muñoz was acknowledged as one of the members of League of Cities of the Philippines and became a pilot city of achieving the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.
Today, Muñoz is fully confident in its march to history, treading the path to glory and immortality as the First-ever Science City in the Philippines and most probably also the First chartered City in the World.
