By Manny Piñol
As the world faces a grim prospect of tight supply of pork in the face of the devastation caused by the African Swine Fever on China’s hog industry, the Department of Agriculture is embarking on a program to increase the production of feed grains by targeting 200,000 hectares to be planted to Sorghum by the First Quarter of 2020.
The Sorghum Production, estimated to be between 800,000 to 1-million metric tons per harvest, is expected to complement the country’s corn production needed to bring down the cost of feeds for both the hog and poultry sector.
Target areas for the Sorghum Production Program are Coconut Areas where it will be introduced as a secondary crop, Ancestral Domain Areas and Upland Rice Areas which are planted only once a year.
Sources of Sorghum Seeds are now being identified with the United States for the hybrid and India for the OPV as preferred suppliers.
Sorghum Program head Director Lorenzo Caranguian, in the last meeting of the livestock and poultry sector, said the ambitious expansion program came following successful regional field trials conducted by the DA.
Sorghum which was introduced to the Philippines about 40 years ago, never really gained popularity as a source of protein for animals because of the absence of support from government.
Studies show, however, that Sorghum has a higher protein content than Corn and is tolerant to long dry spell needing only 35% of the water needed by corn.
Another advantage of Sorghum is its ratooning quality which allows three harvests with just one planting.
Its stalks also remain green and succulent even when it is mature for harvesting thus making it an ideal silage material for cattle and small ruminants.
The Sorghum Program will be supported by a loaning program of the DA Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), the Agriculture and Fisheries Machinery and Equipment (AFME) Loaning Program which extends loans at 2% to poultry and livestock growers to establish their own village-level feed mills.
The supply of pork in the world market is expected to get tight next year because of the widespread devastation of the hog industry in China and other Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Cambodia, and many parts of Europe.
(Photos of the DA Sorghum Pilot Farms taken by DA AFID.)
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