By Manny Piñol
Secretary of Agriculture
Dairy experts from Israel, who helped establish Vietnam’s successful 29,000-head dairy farm, will arrive in the country next week to join the Department of Agriculture’s dairy stakeholders consultations in Ubay, Bohol on Jan. 26.
The dairy experts, who belong to the Israeli company Afimilk, were invited through the help of the Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines Ben Matityau and Fil-Argentinian genetics company, Genex, through Coco Krauss.
The Israel experts are expected to give their inputs into the establishment of what could be the biggest and most ambitious dairy program of the Department of Agriculture which will be located in the 3,000-hectare Ubay Stock Farm in Ubay, Bohol.
The Ubay Dairy Farm is planned to be a public-private partnership venture with the DA through the Bureau of Animal Industry and the National Dairy Authority establishing a 5,000-head Dairy Farm which is estimated to produce 21-million liters of milk every year.
Currently, the Philippines imports 98.2% of its milk and dairy requirements and the dairy cow dispersal program of government in the past failed to post remarkable increases in dairy production.
To respond to the call of President Rody Duterte to produce food commodities to provide for the requirements of the country, the DA consolidated three agencies of the Department – the BAI, NDA and the Philippine Carabao Center – to form the National Dairy Committee headed by the Secretary of Agriculture.
The Bohol Dairy Project which will also bring in companies like Nestle to directly buy the milk production will be the first consolidated dairy farm to be attempted by government following the successful example of the TH Milk project in Vietnam which was initiated by the same Israeli group which will come to the Philippines next week.
The stakeholders caucus on Jan. 26 is the second consultative process conducted by the DA to ensure that all issues and concerns are addressed before the start of the project this year.
On Dec. 18 last year, Bohol officials led by Governor Edgar Chatto and Ubay town officials met with the DA Secretary and members of the National Dairy Committee for a briefing on the proposed project in the Office of the Secretary in Manila.
Gov. Chatto and the officials gave their resounding support for the project saying it jived with their vision to turn the island of Bohol into a dairy production province.
Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco, Jr., former mayor of Maribojoc town, has already been briefed and has given his full support to the Dairy Project.
If successful, other dairy farms to be operated by farmers themselves will be established in the nearby towns of Bohol to transform the island-province into the Dairy Capital of the Philippines.
(Photos of the TH Milk Farm in Vietnam downloaded from the Afimilk website.)
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