Festivals are part of people and community culture. They define the existence and development of communities especially on the physical landscape, activities and events. The carabao dairy, locally termed as GatasangKalabaw Festival (GKF) conducted annually in the province of Nueva Ecija is an interesting dimension of dynamism and agricultural development especially the carabao-based enterprise. Its evolution is an interesting social scientific inquiry that combines culture, community development and economic activity. The study described the process of evolution and development of
GKF; identified and assessed the dairy stakeholders’ involvement; and extent of contribution to the Carabao-based Dairy Enterprise to the overall community development through quantitative and qualitative methodologies using purposive sampling procedure supported by key informant interview, document analysis using historical interpretation and participants observation. The research participants are composed of the NEFEDCCO and 11 primary cooperatives from Rizal, Llanera, Science City of Munoz, San Jose City, and Talavera including the primary stakeholders and representatives from PCC, DTI, CDA, NEPG, and LGU’s. The GKF was evaluated over a period of five-year implementation from 2007 to 2011 as a mechanism to improve the process of implementing local development programs anchored on people and community capacity particularly in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation activities. It also provides an avenue to capture the interactions and relationships of government organizations and non-government organizations, the dairy convergence
system aiming to sustain the proliferation of dairy enterprises as a way of improving farmers lives better including generation of additional employment and income. Furthermore, it provided an avenue for partnership that intensify and enhance the carabao-based enterprise in the province as the Dairy Capital of the Philippines and strengthening of partnerships of the different stakeholders through knowledge sharing on knowledge on cooperative management, promotion of the dairy product, enterprise and business development, community and cooperative camaraderie and employment
generation.