April 2, 2004

 

 

Philippines Dairy Production Up 4.7%

 

Dairy production in the Philippines saw a 4.7% increase in 2003 to 11 million kilograms, up from 10.5 kilograms in 2003, primarily due to government-funded importation of cattle which augmented milking cow inventory.

 

National Dairy Authority (NDA) Planning Chief Rene de Guzman said government's importation of 500 cattle from New Zealand beefed up inventory of milking cows while yield efficiency also raised the 2003 production.

 

"The increase is due to the importation of 500 heads of cows from New Zealand and the increase in yield efficiency. Right now, we are producing 20 tons per day from 16 tons per day," he said in an interview.

 

De Guzman said that while the country's liquid milk production has been increasing, dairy imports (all products including skim milk, fresh milk, butter) likewise continued to rise, reaching to 315 million kilos from January to October 2003 from just 287 million kilos in the same period in 2002, up by 9.7 percent. He said sustained liberalization of the dairy industry which brought down prices pushed imports up.

 

"This is a result of the declining tariff on dairy. It will just be one percent this year from three percent last year," he said.

 

The local dairy industry has severely faced competition aside from encountering problems on labeling of milk products, particularly liquid milk from Australia.

 

While the Bureau of Food and Drug (BFAD) has already decided on NDA's request to stop exporting countries from labeling their liquid milk as "fresh milk," De Guzman said NDA was disappointed with the decision.

 

"We were not satisfied with the decision of BFAD. We were expecting it would have been more strict in labeling. But they only asked producers to qualify the process they used in milk manufacturing - whether UHT (ultra high temperature) or pasteurization," he said.

 

The dairy industry has asked government to stop milk exporters to the country from indicating the word "fresh milk" in their packages considering that UHT-treated milk is not considered fresh milk according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-recognized food safety Codex Alimentarius rules.

 

Unlike pasteurization, which does not destroy the nutrients in the milk as it goes through only 60 to 65 degrees centigrade treatment over 25 to 30 minutes, UHT requires treatment at a high temperature of 135 to 150 degrees centigrade over three to six seconds which destroys the milk nutrients although it is put back in a process called fortification.

 

UHT enables extended shelf life of the milk to six months and thus enable shipment to the country while pasteurized milk only lasts for a week. With the long shipment period required in UHT, dairy producers contended that only pasteurized, locally produced milk can be called fresh milk, agreeing with the Codex Alimentarius rules.

 

De Guzman noted that the government needed to assist the additional importation of pregnant heifers since most of the dairy cows in the Philippines are already too old to be productive.

 

"Our existing stocks are already old because our last importation was in 1993, and there's only eight years of productive life," he said.

 

On the average, dairy cows produce eight to 10 litres per day. However, farmers who have learned to raise the nutrient content of food fed on the animals and to supervise these closely achieve a 15 to 20 litres per day output.