Part One
A COW born and raised in the Philippines must serve its life to the plates of about 38 Filipinos every year.
To date, the Philippines has a cattle population of 2.6 million that has to meet the demand of the country’s 100.98 million strong people.
Well, even the most populous country in the world suffers the same fate as the Philippines: about 13 Chinese people have to feast on one cattle every year.
The same is true for other neighboring Asian countries, such as South Korea and Japan, which has a population-cattle ratio of 15:1 and 33:1, respectively.
Data by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows there are only about five countries where the number of cattle outnumbers its people: Uruguay, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia and Brazil.
Uruguay, which has a population of 3.67 million, has the most cattle per capita at 3.6 by having more than 12 million cattle.
In the hopes of hastening the development of the local beef cattle and other ruminant industries, the Philippines embarked on a series of live and gene importation of ruminant animals (cattle, sheep and goat) eight years ago.
Bloodlines
THE Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), through its ruminant development program called Animal Genetic Infusion Projects (Agip), has facilitated four importation projects aiming to develop local ruminant industries by infusing new bloodlines—may it be through live animals or frozen semen—from America and Australia.
The first project was the P399.90-million US Public Law (USPL) 480-assisted program called Accelerating the Genetic Resource Improvement Program for Beef Cattle and Small Ruminants (Agripbes).
The Agripbes aims to ensure the continuous breeding of purebreds and genetically superior upgraded animals as local source of breeder stock for backyard farmers and small-scale commercial farms of cattle, sheep and goat.
Since the launch of the Agripbes in 2008 under a repayment scheme, the BAI has successfully imported and distributed 2,788 ruminant animals to date: 1,510 heads of sheep, 1,200 heads of goats and 78 heads of cattle.
The ruminant animals were distributed to 16 regions for 239 multiplier farms composed of government stock farms (GSF), state universities and colleges, and private multiplier farms.
Through another P475 million worth of funding assistance from USPL480, the BAI started another project in 2010, the “Goat Production Project for An Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program” (GPP-AHMP). It was through this project that the Philippines was able to import and distribute 1,430 head of breeder goats—1,300 does and 130 bucks—this year.
Genetics
THE GPP-AHMP was the materialization of the agriculture department’s commitment to the government’s program of mitigating hunger and reducing poverty incidence in the country back in 2007.
To date, the country’s goat population has reached 3.71 million heads, according to latest data from Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). PSA data also shows that goat production in 2015 increased to 77,480-metric-tons (MT) live weight, from 76,100 in 2014.
Enacted in 1954, the USPL480 refers to a US legislation, which is also known as the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, which mandates the US to use its agricultural productivity to enhance the food security of developing countries and the determination of the importing country’s capacity of improving its food security.
The third importation program was the Expanded Breeder Cattle Lease Ownership Program (E-BCLOP). This program aimed to revitalize and sustain local cattle production. Proponents said this can be achieved by introducing high-grade and purebred animals with quality genetic materials at both smallholding farmers, as well as multiplier cattle raisers to ensure their continued access to genetics.
The program started in 2014 and ended in 2016, resulting in the procurement of 1,342 heads of imported cattle from Australia. Of this number, 760 heads of purebred commercial Brahman heifer where distributed to local cattle organization Federation of Cattle Raisers Association of the Philippines (FCRAP). The remaining heads were distributed to government stock farms.
Halted
THE last importation program that the BAI conceptualized was the Mutton Development Project (MDP). The MDP, which was conceived and approved in 2015, aimed to buy 3,409 heads of prolific commercial meat-type sheep to develop the mutton industry and sheep production in the country.
The E-BCLOP and MDP are Philippine government-funded projects with respective budgets of P200 million and P124.48 million, respectively.
However, the MDP didn’t come into fruition when Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol took office on June 30.
“The project was overpriced. It was really overpriced and, besides, we already have a lot of sheep in the country,” Piñol told the BusinessMirror. “Go to Mindanao and you will see a lot of sheep there. Let’s just focus on growing and multiplying the current sheep population.”
Costs
ACCORDING to BAI Director Simeon S. Amurao Jr., the 3,409 heads of sheep from Australia were already procured and the only problem was that Piñol didn’t want to sign the travel authority of the BAI-Agip selectors due to the “overpriced” heads of sheep.
“We don’t challenge him [Piñol] because it’s his perception as [DA] Secretary,” Amurao told the BusinessMirror. “It’s the decision of the secretary if the project [MDP] pushes through.”
Amurao said the estimated final cost of each sheep was around P36,000 [$722.23 at current exchange rate], inclusive of transportation costs [via airplane], quarantine and animal-testing fees and other costs. The sheep alone costs only P16,000 [nearly $321], he added.
“The budget given to us was solely for capital outlay, there should be also [a budget] for maintenance and [other] operating expenses [Mooe],” Amurao said, adding that it’s the DA that shoulders the quarantine fees of the ruminant animals in Australia, as well as their transportation costs to the Philippines.
“We didn’t have a budget for Mooe, that’s why we needed it to incorporate to the cost of the sheep,” Amurao said. “That’s the reason it became expensive.”
Waiting
DATA from the BAI shows that as of April 2010, the country’s sheep population reached 49,747. About 56.12 percent, or 27,919, were raised by backyard raisers.
The Federation of Goat and Sheep Producers Association of the Philippines Inc. (Fgaspapi), a collaborator of the MDP project, lauded former Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala for approving the MDP.
“We tried to involve the government [in sheep raising] before. It’s only the [administration of] President [Benigno S.] Aquino III that implemented concrete steps to support the small ruminant industry,” Fgaspapi President Noel Soliman said in an earlier BusinessMirror report.
It was the Fgaspapi that lobbied the government to implement a genetic improvement program focused on sheep production. However, it was not only the MDP that got the green light from the new DA chief.
Paul Limson, overall project manager of Agip, disclosed that Piñol has yet to green light the other projects under Agip.
“We are still waiting for Secretary Piñol’s official word about the Agip. On what he plans to happen, whether he wants to do another wave of importation of live animals,” Limson told the BusinessMirror. “There’s no marching order yet.”
Limited
AGIP Assistant Project Manager Diosamia M. Sevilla said they received overwhelming feedbacks from smallhold farmers and animal raisers who thought that the ruminant importation was a continuous project.
“Yes, there are still people requesting for certain breeds of imported ruminants, especially when they learned there was a project such as the Agripbes,” Sevilla told the BusinessMirror.
“They thought it was unlimited,” Sevilla said, adding that the BAI would focus, for the meantime, on the monitoring and propagation of the already imported ruminant animals in the country.
Some of those people were cattle raiser-members belonging to our group, FCRAP President Allan S. Bernales said.
Bernales said some of their members declined to accept the cattle allotted to them, as their respective farms were still recovering from the effects of El Niño during the distribution of the ruminants over the summer.
Around 150, out of the estimated 200, FCRAP members received cattle from the Ebclop, according to Bernales.
“When the FCRAP board learned about the halting of the importation, we just thought that we cannot do anything if the DA has different priorities for agriculture,” Bernales said. “But we hope that they would continue their genetic improvement projects even if it’s not through live animal breeding.”
He added they would just work double time on the imported cattle they already received.
“What happens now is that we just have to work double time because it will take patience to raise a cattle before breeding,” Bernales said. “We may also have to just wait for the offspring of the first set of cattle we got and distribute it to other members.” To be continued