By Manny Piñol
Buenos Aires, Argentina – There are five countries in the world where cattle outnumber people.
The small South American nation of Uruguay has 12,108,000 cattle for a 3,368,595 population.
New Zealand, known as one of the world’s top dairy producing countries has 9,938,000 with only 4,750,000 people.
In Argentina, also a South American nation, there are 51,895,000 cattle with only 40,117,096 people.
Australia has 27,600,000 cattle and 24,108,206 population while Brazil has 213,035,000 cattle for 200,400,000 people.
The Philippines?
For a population of 105-M, the Philippines only has 2.5-million cattle for its meat supply.
The dairy cattle population is more pathetic.
The country’s dairy farmers, including those raising dairy goats and buffalo, could only produce 1% of the total milk and dairy requirement of the country.
Why is the country’s cattle industry in the doldrums?
Well, as in the case of many other failed government programs, the reason is the lack of focus.
Things are about to change though.
As I have written in a previous post, New Zealand has pledged to support our village-based dairy program. I will discuss this lengthily in a future article.
For the beef supply, the local cattle industry will be getting a massive support starting 2018 as I have directed Asst. Secretary for Livestock to draft a 10-year Philippine Cattle Development Program.
The Program aims to increase the Philippine cattle population to at leaast 10-million by 2028.
Last Friday, I was joined by Ambassador Amelita Aquino, Asec Garzon, agriculture attache Joy Javelosa and exec. asst. Bong Piñol to a biotech laboratory south of Buenos Aires to meet with officials of Tauron Biotech which is interested in helping the Phiippines increase its cattle population by using the embryo transfer technology.
Tauron and its scientists have the capability of producing sexed embryos from the Brangus strain, actually a cross-breed of Brahman and Angus, which then could be introduced to healthy heifers in the Philippines.
Their technology ensures that the embryos will come out as female calf with an accuracy of 99%.
At a cost of less than $100 per embryo and a success rate of between 35 to 50% in calving, the embryo transfer program is expected to dramatically increase the country’s female cattle population.
I have directed Asec Garzon to start the program with about 10,000 heifers next year as part of the trial period. If it is proven successful, as it was in Brazil, then we will launch a massive cattle production program starting 2018.
By 2018, I will allocate sufficient funds to undertake the embryo transfer on 100,000 heifers which after 2 years would be ready to be recipients of another round of embryos of Brangus from Argentina.
We hope to hit a 10-million cattle population in the Philippines by 2028.
Why am I making a 10-year plan for cattle development to end in 2028 when my term as Agriculture Secretary will end in 2022?
I believe that agricultural programs should be sustained and these should not be tied with the political term of the President or the number of years of service by the agriculture secretary.
We plan not only for the population of 2022 but for future Filipinos as well.
(Photos of the Brangus breeddownloaded from Google and Tauron Facebook page. Photos in Tauron Bio-Tech Laboratory taken by Bong Piñol.)
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