The Department of Agriculture (DA) is implementing a four-year P1.56-billion (B) “intensified community-based dairy enterprise development” project, using the accumulated commodity loan proceeds under the United States Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act or Public Law 480 (US PL480) Title 1 program.

The project was originally approved in 2018 by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide livelihood opportunities to rural farm families through goat raising.

Upon the instruction of Agriculture Secretary William Dar, the DA’s Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries (PCAF) revised and expanded the project to include dairy cattle and carabao, and sought the approval of USDA.

“We sincerely thank the USDA, represented in the Philippines by Agricultural Counselor Morgan Haas, for favorably concurring with our revised project, that will boost the country’s livestock population, and subsequently increase the production of fresh milk, and provide more incomes to farm families in the coming years,” the DA chief said.

“In addition to dairy goat, cattle and carabao production, the project includes infrastructure development, technology transfer, and other initiatives to ensure increased fresh milk production in the next four years, starting this year,” Secretary Dar said.

Under the project, the P1.56-B budget will be apportioned to three DA agencies: P987 million (M) for the National Dairy Authority for dairy cattle; P512M for the Philippine Carabao Center; and P67M for PCAF, for project monitoring and evaluation.

The project features six major components, namely:

• Dairy animal procurement and distribution – P962M;
• Expanded artificial insemination – P244M;
• Feed production and development – P16.4M;
• Dairy enterprises development P93M;
• Capacity building – P23M; and
• Project management, monitoring, and evaluation – P227.9 M.

The four-year project aims to attain the following goals:

• Additional production of 27.7 million liters of fresh milk;
• lncrease livestock population of dairy cattle by 7,323 head and dairy goat by 9,611 head through importation and expanded animal breeding programs; dairy carabao by 922 head through importation and local procurement of purebred or crossbred buffaloes and production of additional 10,992 head of dairy buffaloes by 2025; and
• Increase production of female calf of cattle and carabao by 8,562 head annually through expanded AI services.

As of December 31, 2019, the DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry said the country has about 9.2M head of cattle (2.54M), carabao (2.87M), and goats (3.81M). Very few of them are dairy, totaling 60,382: cattle, 25,481; carabaos, 18,291; and goats, 16,610.

The expanded dairy project also involves the following tasks:

• Infusion of purebred and crossbred dairy stocks;
• Use of advanced breeding technologies;
• Establishment and strengthening of community-based dairy enterprises within identified impact dairy zones;
• Increase average family income of dairy farmers by 20% annually through the development of carabao-based enterprises;
• Increase average income of dairy goat farmers by 18%;
• Double the income of dairy farmers with the establishment and enhancement of goat-based and cattle-based dairy enterprises.

For her part, DA-PCAF director Liza Battad said the agency is preparing a monitoring and evaluation plan to ensure a smooth implementation of the program amid the COVID-19 health crisis.

The DA-PCAF will serve as the project’s lead implementing agency and will be supported by the NDA, the PCC, and the DA’s National Livestock Program (NLP), led by Assistant Secretary Dr. William Medrano.

“Secretary Dar has specifically instructed us to meet the US PL480 Title I Program fund utilization guidelines, without compromising the safety of our personnel and development partners,” said Battad, who will regularly update Secretary Dar and the USDA on the project’s status.

The last time the country availed of the US PL480 commodity loan was in 2008, and 10 years later in 2018 the DA proposed to use the accumulated loan proceeds totaling P1.5 B to fund a dairy goat project that was revised and expanded to include dairy cattle and carabao, and approved by USDA. ### (DA-PCAF & DA StratComms)