The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries will launch starting 2018 a 10-Year Livestock and Dairy Development Program which aims to increase the country’s cattle population from 2.5-million to 5-million, raise the milk production from 1% to 10% of the national requirements and strengthen the backyard hog industry with the establishment of community feed mills using local feed materials.
The program will be backed by a P3.7-B fund included in the budget proposal for 2018, P1-B from the Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP) I-Reap Project and P209-M fund under the PL-480 fund provided by the U.S. Government.
The Livestock Development Program will be anchored mainly on the plan to import 10,000 heads of the dual-purpose Girolando heifers from Brazil and 100,000 heads per year thereafter from 2019 to 2022.
The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) has been provided with an additional funding of P1-B for 2018 for the purchase of 10,000 heifers while the PRDP will earmark an estimated P1-B for the cattle sheds and other facilities needed for the program.
Unlike the failed cattle development program in the past where imported animals were turned over individually to farmers which eventually were either sold or slaughtered, the Livestock and Dairy Program under the administration of President Rody Duterte will implement the “Multiplier Farm Concept” where breeding and dairy farms with 100 heads each will be established as a community project and managed by groups of farmers.
Using modern technology, the Girolando heifers will be impregnated using embryos, the sex of which has been pre-determined in the laboratory.
For 2018, a total of 100 Multiplier Farms will be established initially in Batangas, the Cordillera Region and in two other areas in Visayas and Mindanao where the malnutrition rate is very high.
Milk produced from the multiplier farms will be used in a milk feeding program which would target children in communities with very high malnutrition rate.
This would assure a ready market for the milk produced by the multiplier farms while at the same time addressing malnutrition.
The Dairy Goat Development Program will be financed using available funds from the United States government’s PL480 program amounting to about P200-M and local funds of about P30-M.
The Dairy Goat breeding materials will be sourced from accredited local breeders and farms in the United States of America.
It will be implemented using the same Multiplier Farm Program used in the Dairy Cattle Project with each farmers’ group handling at least 25 heads of Dairy Goats.
Milk produced from the multiplier farm will also be used in a local milk feeding program targeting communities with very high malnutrition rates.
The backyard hog raising, including poultry raising program, will be backed by funds which will be used in establishing municipal or provincial feed mills which will use locally available feed materials.
The cost of feeds has always been the main concern of backyard hog raisers who use commercial feeds which are priced exorbitantly.
The establishment of the local feed mills will not only ensure the availability of affordable feeds for the backyard hog raisers and free-range chicken raisers but also provide a ready market for the corn production of farmers in the countryside.
In all of these programs, I have always emphasised to people working on the projects that all that is needed is greater focus on the identified targets and objectives.
Setting a target and focusing efforts and resources to achieve it is a surefire formula of a successful program.
(First two photos downloaded from public websites show the Dairy Cattle Barns; next two photos taken from the goat farm of my friend Jim Clem in Oregon, USA; last two photos downloaded from public websites show local hog raisers and a medium sized community feed mill.)
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