Current local milk production reached 18.45 million liters, a remarkable 12% growth from 2011.
You might think this is an impressive feat. Think again. Dairy products are our country’s second largest agricultural import after wheat. Our local milk production is just 1% of our dairy requirements.
This scenario seems to post a long and tough fight to reduce imports and at the same time, to meet the demand for dairy products. Hence, the industry needs effective strategies to boost local milk production.
With almost 37% of our local milk production supplied by buffaloes, PCAARRD and the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) partnered with local government units (LGUs), dairy farmers’ associations, and milk dealers to increase milk production.
This public-private partnership involves seven technology transfer projects across Regions III, IV, VII, and VIII through the S&T Community Based Farm (STCBF) and TechnoMart (TM) modalities. These projects have a combined budget of P23.9 million wherein 70% (P16.7 million) is from PCAARRD and the rest from PCC, LGUs, and dairy farmers’ cooperatives.
STCBF and TM are two innovative approaches under the Pinoy S&T Services for Farmers and Entrepreneurs (PSF) Program. These modalities are PCAARRD’s transition platform from technology demonstration to technology commercialization.
STCBF advocates wider adoption of S&T interventions to improve productivity and capacitate farmers in a particular community. It aims for supply reliability of raw materials in support of the TM enterprise.
TM is the bridge to push agro-based products from the communities to the market.
At present, the average milk yield is about 3 liters per animal per day. With the application of S&T interventions, these projects target 5 liters of milk per animal per day by 2016.
In support to increased milk production, TM projects will handle the processing of dairy products, adopting proper milk handling procedures through trainings, and use of appropriate milk handling facilities.
Dairy technologies for community adoption include the use of urea-treated rice straw as fodder in Llanera, Nueva, Ecija; commercial production of grass/corn silage in Lupao, Nueva Ecija; flushing, use of milk replacer and moringa supplementation in Magdalena, Laguna; cassava foliage feeding in Bohol; and flushing and feeds supplementation in Leyte.
Rice straw alone is a poor quality roughage but when treated with the right amount of urea solution, its crude protein content will increase from 4% to 7%. Its digestibility and palatability will be enhanced. In effect, when buffaloes receive proper nutrition, you can expect not only high quality milk but high milk yield as well.
Grass or corn silage is another enriched forage that could address problems on nutrition and forage deficiencies during lean months. Silage making could be easily adopted by farmers for farm use or in a commercial scale because this requires simple equipment (e.g., forage chopper) and low input costs.
Flushing of newly calved buffaloes and use of milk replacer to calves were found profitable as these strategies increase milk yield from 3.5 liters to 4.6 liters based on a recently concluded PCC-implemented S&T Based Farm (STBF) on buffalo milk production.
Flushing postpartum cows with 4―5 kilograms of concentrate supplement for 90 days also increases conception rate from 30% to 45%; and shortens service period and calving interval from 22 months to 16―18 months.
Milk replacer is a powdered milk that when mixed with water approximates the nutritive composition of cow’s milk. If farmers will use milk replacer and sell their raw carabao’s milk, they would gain additional income of P30 per liter. A liter of milk replacer only costs P20 compared with P50 per liter of raw carabao’s milk. Calves usually require about 4 liters of milk everyday.
Moringa or malunggay as livestock feed has been explored due to its high nutritive value, high dry matter yield, and 17―26% protein content. It is also high in beta carotene, iron, and potassium. Its galactogenic property is found to stimulate milk production. The S&T interventions will cover the establishment of moringa pasture for forage production, processing of moringa leaf meal, and utilization as fresh forage or leaf meal.
Another source of feed is cassava. Cassava foliage (CSF) has been proven to be a quality feed for buffaloes with more than 20% protein content, 67% dry matter digestibility, and potential average daily gain of 1 kilogram in growing animals. The potential of CSF feeding in increasing milk yield, from an average of 2 liters per day to 5.62 liters per day with proper feeding management, has been showcased in an STBF project in Bohol.
Meanwhile, TM dairy product projects are based in Magdalena, Laguna and Rosario, Batangas. These projects aim to improve the quality of the milk produced by the community-based farms through the application of selected S&T interventions.
More than the modalities, the partnership and the commitment of cooperators are two important success factors of these technology transfer projects. These attributes, along with the multi-region STCBF and TM projects, hope to contribute in closing the gap between supply and demand for dairy products.