April 24, 2008

Philippines hopes to lower milk imports through carabao milk technology

The Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) in the Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija has developed a new technology in milking carabaos in an attempt to lessen the country's dependence on imported milk by five percent.

The PCC said the process-- called the ultrasound-guided ovum (OPU) --will be done on superior-like female Bulgarian buffaloes.

The OPU technology, which was worth P1.5 million, was acquired by PCC from Honda Philippines thru a funding from the Department of Agriculture- Bureau of Agricultural Resources.

OPU is done in combination with in-vitro embryo production technique. It is much like an ultrasound-facility used for humans, but has an intravaginal transducer fitted with a needle, to catch the eggs from inside the buffalo.

Edwin Atabay, one of PCC's senior research specialists, said the OPU makes it easier for scientists to make sure that the desired traits are achieved, unlike in usual in-vitro fertilization methods where one cannot see the genetic make-up of the source where the eggs are taken.

A newborn female buffalo naturally produces at least 100 thousand eggs and wit the OPU, no carabao's egg will be wasted, thus maximising the potential of a female carabao, according to PCC scientists.

At present, the PCC is still at the in-vitro embryo production stage, meaning they have just started transferring produced embryos to the surrogate mother carabao.

It will take another 320 days or nearly a year before a baby carabao that can already produce more milk is born. If this succeeds, PCC said will help lessen the country's dependence on imported milk.

A carabao can already produce milk as early as the third or fourth year.

The OPU technology has been tested in the US, Japan and New Zealand. An Italian expert from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations trained PCC research specialists on the use of the OPU.