The Department of Agriculture (DA) is planning to import some 8,000 dairy goats from the United States in 2019 in line with its goal of increasing Philippine milk production.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the DA will tap the remaining P1.5 billion in the US food-aid program under Washington’s Public Law (PL) 480 for the importation of dairy goats.
“We will roll out a four-year dairy goat program starting 2019, and it will involve the importation of about 8,000 dairy goats with superior genes,” Piñol told reporters in an interview on Monday.
He disclosed that he has presented the DA’s dairy program to Ralph Bean, agricultural counselor of the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service in Manila, during a recent meeting. He added that Bean is keen on the DA’s dairy goat-importation program.
The DA chief said he had also asked Bean to help him connect with American dairy goat raisers.
“The previous goat-importation program was a poorly planned project. They bidded out the project but American dairy goat raisers were not prepared for the program,” Piñol said.
“What happened was that they bought old and sick goats that were not meant for dairy production. Since the dairy program will start by 2019, I told Bean maybe we could meet the American dairy goat raisers next year,” he added.
Piñol said meeting the US-based dairy goat raisers would also help them calibrate their production so they could meet the demands of the DA’s program.
The importation of dairy goats from the US is part of the DA’s plan to ramp up local milk production to meet at least 10 percent of annual domestic requirement by 2022 and reduce the country’s reliance on imports.
Aside from importing dairy goats, Piñol said the DA will also procure animals with superior genes from local breeders.
Enacted in 1954, the PL 480, which is also known as the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, 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 DA has previously engaged in the importation of live animals using funding assistance from PL 480, such as the Bureau of Animal Industry’s (BAI) Goat Production Project for an Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program (GPP-AHMP), which cost around P475 million. Through the GPP-AHMP, the BAI imported and distributed at least 1,430 goats
(1,300 does and 130 bucks).
The government had also tapped the PL480 for a P399.9-million program dubbed as the “Accelerating the Genetic Resource Improvement Program for Beef Cattle and Small Ruminants.”
Piñol said the DA is now consolidating the government’s dairy-related programs. He added that a National Dairy Council (NDC) will be established to oversee the implementation of the government’s dairy program.
The NDC will to be headed by Piñol and will also be comprised of representatives from the Philippine Carabao Center, National Dairy Authority and the BAI.