July 5, 2012
 

Philippines urged to have more animal feed millers 

The Philippines should allow more animal feed millers to enter the country, according to Hong Kong-based trade show organizer UBM Asia.

M.Gandhi, managing director of UBM Asia Thailand Co. Ltd., which oversees the company's business in the Asean region says that with a lot of pressure of prices of food seen in the next ten to twenty years, feed will be the most important component for the livestock industry.

M. Gandhi added that during this period, food prices are expected to rise very quickly because of cost of land and other inputs in food production.

For their reason, the country has to explore new technologies to keep the cost of feed low.

In the Philippines, corn is still the predominant animal feed base. Data from Bureau of Agricultural Statistics showed that as of the last week of June, the average wholesale price of yellow corn was PHP15.53 (US$0.37) per kilogram, down by 2.02 percent from the previous week, but was up by 6.08 percent from the same period the previous year.

Corn is going to be critical, tells Gandhi.

He noted that some countries like India had experienced inflation of 10 percent because of rising food prices.

Gandhi said there are now new ways of bringing down the cost of livestock feed through production techniques and new additives such as probiotics that can increase feed absorption into animals.