Dairy industry self-sufficiency seen with P3.7 B-investment

PHILIPPINES - The Philippines doesn’t need to forever depend on importing dairy products costing it P27.5 billion yearly if only it invests P3.67 billion for 25,000 purebred dairy buffaloes to achieve self-sufficiency in 10 years.

Supplying adequate amount of dairy products for the Filipino populace is not necessarily complicated. The Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) has mapped out a plan that will generate numerous multiplier effect most notable of which is the creation of a huge workforce of 1.75 million from the poorest of the poor.

The problem, as usual, is financing and maybe even more difficult to hurdle due to its political implications is the displacement of middlemen engaged in importing and processing dairy products.

"If we can have that amount, it will go a long way. We can be self-sufficient in 10 years," said Dr. Libertado Cruz, PCC executive director, in an interview at an inauguration of "Expanding Artificial Insemination Service" at PCC’s Muñoz, Nueva Ecija headquarters.

The budget involves the purchase of 25,000 heads of buffalo cow at P75,000 each including transport and a separate P1.8 billion for capability building. The stocks can be bought from disease-free regions in Brazil.

The country imports 1.8 billion liters in liquid milk equivalent (LME, in cow’s milk) of dairy products yearly. Converted to buffalo milk which has higher milk fat of seven to eight percent compared to milk fat of cow’s (cattle) milk at only three to four percent, this is only equivalent to 900 million liters in LME, a unit used for conversion of all dairy products including skim milk or butter.

An infusion of 1,000 heads of buffalo cow will produce 380 heads when the cows are bred with locally-existing carabaos.

Such number will yield 6.48 million liters of milk (LME) on the fourth year, 16.58 million liters on the sixth year, 26.67 million liters on the eight year, and 36.77 million liters on the tenth year. With 25,000 heads, that will produce 919 million liters which will make the country dairy self-sufficient, given consumption stays at present levels.

Crucial to this plan, Cruz said is the mobilization of private technicians learned in conducting artificial insemination (AI), a modern technique of implanting the bull’s semen on the breedable female to produce offspring.

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Source: The Manila Bulletin Online

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