Awareness of Green Technologies among Dairy MSMEs in Cagayan Valley an Administrative Region in the Philippines

Abstract

Dairy is one of the growing and promising industries in the Cagayan Valley region. There were concerted efforts made by the government, non-government, and people's organizations to design a road map on Dairy for Cagayan Valley. This industry little by little has gotten bigger considering the greater demand for dairy products in the market. Better management and proper health care of dairy animals are important for maintaining higher productivity. Looking at economic development, the environment has been sacrificed in any case. The world is facing climate change because of economic development, the industrialization productions of goods, over-harvesting of natural resources, and left behind the restorations of a degraded environment. Though at present, the government of various countries made an initiative to mitigate climate change. In the Philippines, various laws and programs are a concern for the environment which is implemented and observed by all government agencies. In the case of Cagayan Valley, before the massive production of dairy in the region, the dairy Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are evaluated for their awareness of green technologies and assessed the determinants that influence the level of awareness and mitigate climate change. This study was conducted in Cagayan Valley covering Isabela, Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, and Cagayan provinces from 2018 to 2020 with the Dairy Micro Small Medium Enterprises operating in the region as respondents and was selected from the list provided by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture through the National Dairy Authority. A semi-structured questionnaire was used and conducted Focus group discussion, Problem Analysis, Key Informant Interviews, Environmental Scanning, and Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis. The data were processed using descriptive-inferential statistics. The assessment on the level of awareness of the technologies was rated high with a weighted mean of 3.85 percent. The assessment for environmental practices of the dairy farmers/MSMEs is rated very good with 3.9 weighted means. As to the problems and constraints encountered by the dairy farmer, the dairy farmers have highlighted the insufficient technical and financial support from the authorities for green technologies. They have noted the lack of technical know-how and been told that there will be an added cost to their operation, while the least that they have mentioned are very costly and have no sources of capital for acquisition and implementation, and difficulty to integrate with their existing dairy operations.