IN A bid to establish a profitable, competitive, and sustainable dairy industry by 2020, the National Dairy Authority (NDA) has urged farmers to help attain the 20 percent increase in production target this year.
The industry is presently placed at P86 billion.
Dairy production for the year 2015 is pegged at 20 million liters, six million of which is contributed by Mindanao, with only 1,500 to 1,800 liters coming from Davao dairy farmers.
“Our biggest challenge in the industry is how to meet the domestic demand which is at 305 million liters with our limited supply. Quality-wise we are at par with other dairy producing countries but our bottleneck is really how to boost our actual production to meet the demand,” Marilyn Mabale, NDA’s area manager for Mindanao said.
She said that with the set target which is to increase production of last year by 20 percent, proper and aggressive implementation of programs designed to boost dairy industry should be prioritized.
“We hope to achieve that target, we can meet it by improving efficiency of operations, providing dairy cows and other milk producing animals with good nutrition, acquiring and raising of more of dairy cows and other milk producing animals like goats,” Mabale said.
Improving nutrition of the dairy-producing cows can be achieved by embarking on a sustained dairy herd build-up through intensified upgrading and preservation of local stock, augmented by importation of dairy animals, embryos and equipment, and establishment of more multiplier and grow-out farms.
The dairy milk is the third largest agri-import in the country next from Rice and wheat, respectively. The Philippines has an annual import cost of $70 billion.
The vision of achieving profitable, competitive, and sustainable growing dairy industry, built on financially viable business performance throughout the value chain, providing a good quality of life for farmers, and ensuring consumers safe and quality milk and milk products by 2020, NDA will continue to implement its four major programs such as the Herd Build Up Program, Dairy Business Enhancement Program, Milk Feeding Program, and Milk Quality and Safety Assurance Program.
For the “ready to drink liquid milk”, production in 2015 is at 63 million liters, against the 80 million liters actual demand. The 20 million liters is contributed by local producers the rest are imported.
In Mindanao, dairy cows and other milk producing animals are presently 5,000 heads, 2,300 of which are from the Southern part of the island.
Mabale said that in Maramag, Bukidnon, the Universal Harvester Inc. is up for bringing in 400 heads of dairy cows by June of this year all will be imported from New Zealand through NDA. At present it has 228 heads of dairy cows
“All these will be imported from New Zealand through NDA, each cow costs P145,000,” she said adding that for other areas in Mindanao 100 heads of cow are up for taking, 50 has already a taker from Mati City while the remaining 50 is still up for taking.
In Southern Mindanao, there are two dairy facilities which are located in Calinan, Davao City and New Corella, Davao del Norte.
Calinan dairy facility has a capacity of 1,000 liters per hour but actual production is at 4,000 liters per day.
While the New Corella dairy facility has a capacity of 300 liters per hour but the actual production is only 500 liters per day.