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[av_heading heading=’Sustainability of local dairy animals’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY JULIO P. YAP JR.
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Friday, January 20, 2017
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THE Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) said the country is only one-percent sufficient in milk.
This would clearly show that 99 percent of the dairy products being consumed in the country are imported.
The PCC, which is under the Department of Agriculture (DA), also said that cattle provides about 64 percent of the total local milk volume, while buffalos contribute only 34 percent.
It was learned that one of the DA’s major programs is milk feeding program.
“But where will we get this if we are only one-percent sufficient?” asked Dr. Eufrocina DP. Atabay of the PCC.
The situation is aggravated by the low number of dairy herd population – both in buffalo and cattle.
“Another problem is that the animals are being left unproductive for a long time and this will result to low reproduction efficiency and economic loss,” Atabay, who specializes in reproductive biotechnology, said.
Hence, the need for the development of the dairy industry is obvious, especially with the increasing human population both on a global and national scale.
This suggests an increasing demand for food sufficiency and agricultural sustainability.
At the core of this mission is PCC, through its program “The Role of Assisted Reproduction in Dairy Industry Development.”
Specifically, Atabay and her team’s objective is to increase dairy herd build-up in the Philippines, to increase in terms of quantity, and to improve the herd’s genetic quality.
One of the technologies that Atabay and her team employ for dairy herd build-up is artificial insemination (AI).
This process of simulated reproduction involves extracting sperm from a quality male buffalo and injecting the sperm into the reproductive tract of a female buffalo.
AI is used to breed animals with higher productivity for both milk and meat by harnessing select animals’ excellent genetic materials.
Two months after the AI, the team checks the presence of fetus inside the carabao.
The team also uses pregnancy test on the animal to determine if the breeding is successful “so we can detect non-pregnancy at the soonest time possible,” said Atabay.
This helps to prevent animals that can be productive to be unproductive for too long.
This scenario (unproductivity of animals for extended periods), according to Atabay, would be costly for farmers and breeders.
Another technology for enhanced genetic improvement for better quality carabaos is embryo transfer.
The scientists collect quality embryos from one female buffalo for transfer to another female buffalo. The actual transfer is undertaken using AI as well.
They also do in vitro fertilization, or the incubation of the sperm and egg in a petri dish.
After this, they do further culture and then perform embryo transfer.
Sometimes, the group induces the buffalo to produce more eggs to produce more embryos in order to produce more offspring.
“As we employ these technologies, we are ensuring the sustainability of the production of our local dairy animals so we can avoid the importation of live animals, avoid the importation of some diseases for a sustainable and globally competitive dairy industry,” Atabay said./PN
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