June 2, 2011
 
Thailand to help improve Philippine dairy industry
 

Thailand has vowed to help improve the dairy industry in the Philippines as part of the two countries' efforts to strengthen their bilateral cooperation. 
 

Thai Ambassador Prasas Prasasvinitchai of the Royal Thai Embassy in Manila announced its full support for the country's dairy sector during a visit of a 15-member Philippine delegation in Thailand led by Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Livestock Davinio P. Catbagan, National Dairy Authority (NDA) administrator Grace J. Cenas and Bureau of Animal Industry executive director Efren C. Nuestro.

Prasasvinitchai said Thailand is willing to share the technology to the Philippines as well possible exchange programme for skills and knowledge sharing of best practices in dairy production, processing, packaging and marketing.

Catbagan said they are eyeing projects to enhance the capacities of dairy-cattle technicians for the artificial-insemination programme.  Being a foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease-free country, Catbagan added the Philippines can offer its best practices in animal disease prevention and control.

Aside from being FMD-free, the Philippines is also free of the avian-influenza virus, also known as the bird flu virus.

Cenas said an exchange programme, including one that will send farmers to learn first-hand from their counterparts in Thailand how to manage their dairy farms and strengthen their dairy farmers' cooperatives, will help local farmers do good business in producing pasteurized milk and other milk products and byproducts that will be a boost in local dairy development.

She said learning from discussions with their counterparts in Thailand, including what Thailand did to achieve its present status of being 60-percent milk self-sufficient. Agriculture experts from the Philippines have long called for an increased budget allocation for the agriculture sector.

In fact, she said the Philippines is on the right track if it will only pursue the proposed Philippine Dairy Roadmap 2011-16, which the NDA hopes will fast-track the development of the dairy industry.

As proposed in the Philippine Dairy Roadmap, Cenas assures that sure way to develop the industry is to tap local beef cattle to upgrade to dairy cattle breeds, the same way Thailand did.  She added that the industry needs to tap our local cattle and use artificial insemination to ensure the genetic improvement of cattle.

The dairy cattle breed which could be imported from Australia and New Zealand could produce as much as 10 to 12 litres a day, compared with the local cattle that can only produces around four to five litres a day.

To increase the number of the country's so-called milking cows, Cenas said more artificial-insemination centres managed by well-trained technicians is a necessity.

According to Cenas, there are around 700 artificial-insemination centres all over Thailand while the Philippines has only less than 10 well-established artificial-insemination centres.

Also, she said there's a need to improve the efficiency of the country's technicians through trainings.

Cenas said to strengthen the foundation of the dairy industry, there's a need to formulate policies that will support small farmers and the dairy cooperatives.

The NDA's 2011 budget is PHP547 million (US$12.65 million) and the agency is proposing to have PHP691 million (US$15.98 million) in 2012. 

Having sufficient budget, Cenas said this will help boost the local dairy development and help the Philippines achieve the status of Thailand in terms of milk self-sufficiency.

Right now, Thailand has approximately 500,000 dairy cattle. The Philippines only has 34,000 and only half or about 17,000 are females, plus the latest importation of 870 dairy cattle from New Zealand which arrived on May 12.

The Philippines has about 2.5 million local cattle but only around 700,000 are females, which can be tapped to produce milking cows.

As part of the proposed Philippine Dairy Roadmap, Cenas said the NDA plans to buy milking cows which farmers want to dispose.  Often, she said those sold by farmers when they are in dire need of money, end up in slaughterhouses, and sometimes, these cattle are milking cows that the country needs to produce better offspring and more milk.

According to Cenas, the NDA will propose a moratorium in the slaughter of these milking cows.

She added that the NDA plans to ask local government units to pass local laws prohibiting the killing of milking cows so that the dairy cattle breed will be able to multiply.