|
IT seems
a long shot, but a former agriculture secretary believes
the local dairy industry needs only a budget support of
P500 million a year and tariff protection to be able to
supply the estimated P25 billion in milk and milk
products imported mainly from Australia and New Zealand.
Leonardo
Montemayor did not say for how long it would take the
dairy industry to do so with his proposed budget
support, but pointedly said it could be done. “The focus
[of support] was always on rice, and we had difficulties
securing support from the national government for the
local dairy industry’s development.”
He was
referring to the time of his tenure from 2001, when he
found out the local dairy industry had remained
undeveloped because it does not have the wherewithal to
modernize and expand.
Montemayor spoke at the sidelines of a forum on
corporate farming in Quezon City on Thursday.
Besides
the annual budgetary support, Montemayor wants tariffs
on imported milk raised to at least 10 percent to make
dairy production attractive for prospective local
investors. He said the duty for imported milk is at
around 3 percent.
The
development of the local industry was again thrust to
public consciousness following the discovery that milk
from China is tainted with melamine.
This
development has apparently not induced the desired
funding support since the budget—admittedly developed
before the Chinese milk scandal—has allocated only about
P60 million for the development of the cattle/dairy
subsector in 2009.
This
small budget support is consistent with the statement of
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap in an earlier forum
that the development of the local industry should be a
private-sector initiative and not that of the
government.
Yap had estimated the subsector needs about half-million heads
of milking cows to bring it up to modern standards. As
of now, the dairy subsector has only about 30,000 heads,
not even 10 percent of Yap’s estimate. |
