It didn’t come as a surprise to many when Georg Bender, a former fashion designer from Germany, decided in 1993 to build a dive resort in Puerto Galera after an extended dive vacation. He built and designed his resort, he explained, because while there were quality resorts, some quality service was missing.
His successful business endeavor eventually led him to open another dive resort in Dauin, Negros Oriental, which he managed for almost 10 years.
But anyone who knew Bender back then may be surprised now to learn of his new passion — goat farming.
This started five years ago after Bender, 55, bought a five-hectare property in Dauin, which was originally a mango orchard-coconut plantation. A Swiss former employee, who initially took care of the development of the property, also took care of the orchard, and incidentally, brought in 15 heads of boer goats — descendants of the breed from South Africa which is good for meat production. Bender thought of adopting the goats as a hobby.
Then someone introduced Bender to Anglo-Nubian goats. In addition to meat, these goats, which are also called Nubians, are dairy goats that produce rich milk for a variety of dairy products, including some of the world’s finest cheeses.
The male Nubian goats, Bender explained, could grow as heavy as 90 kilos and 35 inches tall. One can tell them apart from the local kanding because aside from their mere size, Nubians have elongated and floppy ears.
With the help of veterinarian Dr. Ed Beso, who is also manager of the farm called The Goatary, Bender crossbred his goats with the goal of obtaining breeds close to 100 percent pure-bred — until his stock grew to close to 500 goats.
“In the beginning, we would not open the farm for visitors, simply because our stock was not of good quality. Nowadays, we are enthusiastic about our breeding stock. It shows that over the last five years, all the hard work and the big investment has resulted in one of the most outstanding goat farms in the country,” Bender proudly said. “Of course, this time, I feel this is not a hobby anymore.”
Bender and his farmhands — about three locals from the town of Dauin for every 40 goats — have developed a close relationship with the goats, each of whom they call by name, and whose statistics — such as breed, characteristics, dairy value, production capacity, and offspring — are meticulously recorded in a database.
The farmhands keep an eye out for every doe to ensure that their milking schedule is not missed. “You only have a small window of maximum two hours where the does need to be milked. You miss that even once, and that doe would lose her ability to produce that much milk for that particular lactating period,” Bender said.
Goats at the Goatary produce between one to two liters of milk each day. The dairy (milk, cheese, butter, ice cream, yogurt) produced from Anglo-Nubians is known for its high butterfat content and smooth flavor.
“When the local households start tending to better quality goats like these Anglo-Nubian, then we can also begin to understand how to better cook goat meat for food,” Bender said, noting how cooked goat meat does not have to have that certain pungent odor that turns not a few people off.
And as Austrian chef Gunther Sanin of the Casablanca Restaurant in Dumaguete has shown, the seemingly-pedestrian goat meat (called chevon, or colloquially referred to as mutton) can be whipped up into a gourmet meal.
Bender explained there are gourmet ways of preparing goat meat aside from the all-too-common kaldereta (goat stew with tomato paste), a favorite fiesta fare.
Chevon can be baked, grilled, barbecued, minced, canned, fried, curried, made into sausage, or cooked like the all-time Filipino favorite lechon (roasted suckling pig).
Bender offers roasted (or uncooked) lechon goat — kids between one to 10 months old — for a fair price, with a two-day notice for orders.
He said that in the last year or so, the marketing of Anglo-Nubian breed and cheese-making are taking up a lot of his time. In fact, he had to divest of his investments in the resort business two years ago.
His wife Alona, meanwhile, is busy making goat cheese at home, and concocting various flavors. Thus far, she has gotten a lot of thumbs-up from local consumers for her goat cheese in pimiento, basil, onion & chives, and celery, to name a few.
Bender said that goat meat, goat milk, goat cheese, and goat yoghurt are “not only important for the people’s health but that their production is manageable, doable, and profitable”. He said that although he has no figures to prove this yet, he is beginning to realize how lucrative the business could be.
Bender has registered the trademark for his dairy — The Goatman — which he said he hopes will be a marketing success in major markets in the country.
“There must be a big demand for goat products when people begin to realize its health benefits,” noted Bender. He cited that milk, for example, must be considered “food” rather than merely a drink, whose medicinal and health value is currently “grossly underestimated in the local community”.
Goat milk is documented as a perfect source of calcium, protein, vitamins, and minerals for those who have allergies, or are lactose-intolerant.
Goat meat, on the other hand, is the leanest, and contains even less fat than chicken.
Bender and his veterinarian-manager are currently working on how they could better maximize the use of whey (watery part from curds, which is the soured milk used for making cheese) as vinegar, and as a protein drink for a healthy diet.
Goat manure is also being cured in the farm’s vermi composting set-up to help fertilize the forage like Desmodium rensonii and napier grass grown in the farm.
“Goats can’t just eat any grass; for good nutrition, they have to be fed the good kind of grass and legume plants and fodder, and they have to have it in sufficient quantity at the right time,” Bender said.
The tract to hitting it big with the goats may take a while in Negros Oriental at least, but Bender is unfazed. “If we could produce at least a good percentage of the consumption demand for goat meat, goat milk, and goat cheese, we would have done our job of being self-sufficient,” Bender said.
