Bohol dairy gets P30M+ of

Industry funds in 6th year

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, July 23 (PIA) –In the spirit of convergence which has among the best practices in Bohol, Bohol’s dairy industry and its stakeholders heaped funds of about P 30M this year as the industry celebrates its sixth year.

Over the noticeable increase in milk production volume per day, the 6th Milk Festival is a fitting reason to celebrate the resilience of the dairy industry which has visibly wallowed in the mud left by last year’s debilitating calamities and the pandemic, states Provincial Veterinarian Dr. Stella Marie Lapiz, during the out-of-Tagbilaran Sandugo Festival event held in Ubay.

At the recent 6th Bohol Milk Festival which was held at the new Ubay Bus and Food Terminal in barangay Bood, government agencies bared over P30 million worth of funds and help set for the industry and its stakeholders in a new bid to spread the good promise of dairying as an alternative income for farmers.

Philippine Carabao Center (PCC), which initiated the viability study on dairy production, handed outs a P5 million milk processing building for Bohol Dairy Cooperative (BODACO) to be built in San Pascual Ubay and P11 M for the repair and Improvement of the PCC Training Center and Milk Processing Facility at the Ubay Stock Farm.

In a research and accompanying field study, PCC said as long as farmers use crossbred and hybrid carabao to milk, a farmer tens to get double to triple the milk yield, against the native varieties.

The same pattern was also observed in dairy cattle.

In Bohol for example, Fernando Dupalco, a carabao dairy adopter said he now milks a carabao and gets an average of 6 liters of milk every day, plus the calf which he can sell, nurture to productive age and milk or use as draft animal.

PCC buys the milk at P50 per liter, which every farmer adopter collects.

He also has four more animals now pregnant and could add to his milk yield in months.

No less than PCC Deputy Executive Director and former PCC Ubay Center chief Dr. Caro Salcez handed in the assistance in ceremonies witnessed by Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado, Department of Agriculture Regional Executive Director (RED) Joel Elumba, PCC Bohol center Chief Dr. Dinah Loculan and Balilihan mayor Ma. Pureza Chatto with PCC Bohol officials.

Meanwhile, Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP), which is a national government and World Bank facility for enabling agriculture based industries, is giving out through the DA, over P9.2 M for Bohol dairy industry alone.

PRDP Visayas Cluster Deputy Project Director, Engr. Albert Barrogo said, in terms of agri-enterprise, Bohol dairy is the first approved big ticket project funded by them.

As the PRDP operates on a counter-parting scheme, the entire fund is magnified with the local government and the beneficiary counter part, enhancing the value of the grant.

From the PRDP fund comes the procurement of equipment and supplies for milk processing, cold storage like freezers, and mobile reefer vans as well as a mobile parlor for the marketing support, according to Dr. Lapiz.

Part of the fund would also be used as a working capital to buy processing supplies and to buy raw milk from the farmers, she added.

During the program, authorities turned over the documents and keys of the dairy rolling store complete with freezers and equipment for a fully functional milk parlor.

Moreover, DA RED Elumba also announced their dispersal of 12 carabaos for Cagting Small farmers and Fisherfolks Association, which could start off the dairy production in that part of Ubay.

The festival also highlighted the launching of zone 2 cluster of town adopters of the dairy production.

Authorities announced the launching of the expansion towns committed the milk production program. These are the towns of Talibon, Carmen, Sagbayan, Danao, Clarin, San Isidro, Catigbian, Antequera, Balilihan, Corella, Sevilla, Sikatuna and Batuan.

These towns would be served by a Philippine Coconut Authority-funded multi-million Milk Processing Facility in Libertad Tubigon.

To date, Bohol now has 22 towns dedicated to milk production.

Under Zone 1, the first towns which proved the promise of the industry were Ubay, President carlos P. Garica, Mabini, Alicia, Trinidad, Talibon, Bien Unido, San Miguel and Dagohoy.

The PCC and the National Dairy Authority (NDA) institutional milk processing facilities serve the processing requirements of these towns. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

DA gets back to RD

on rice value chain

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, July 22 (PIA)--Department of Agriculture (DA) authorities are now shifting back their attention to research and development, especially on the rice value chain, to look into the issue of why farmers are still producing way below what they should be getting for their hard work.

The new twist came after a former DA secretary downplayed research, which made those whose projects bank on the initiative become tagged as involved in controversies.

DA-7 Information Officer Che dela Victoria however bared this new twist, to information officer members of the Association of United Development Information Officers of Bohol (AUDIO Bohol) during the one-day briefing on Food Security at the Bohol Public School Teachers and Employees Association building July 20.

This too as the country’s newly elected president took on the agriculture portfolio and pronounced publicly that he wants rice to be commercially available at P20 a kilo or Beynte’ng Bigas.

His Beynte’ng Bigas has some critics laughing, taunting the son of a former president as detached from the reality.

But then, those who are familiar with the rice value chain knows that at every aspect of the chain, Filipino farmers, have been following wrong practices that have not been grounded on research and development that has been available.

Regionalized Focal Person for Rice in Region 7, Cecille Opada, who herself has decades of experience as a rice technician, said the Philippine Statistics Authority’s data has shown that the average yield for a hectare of rice farm here is 3.0 tons.

That however is after farmers follow what they think works because it worked then.

And that, too is a mistake that has been ingrained in the mentality of the farmer, hits Opada who spoke to information officers during the forum.

Every rice technician at DA knows they can grow from 7 to 10 tons in a hectare, with [planting at] the right time, putting the right inputs, and using the right rice seed varieties, Opada shared in the forum attended by LGU and national government agencies information officers.

For illustration, another rice technician, in an interview said, there are already many rice seeds available but one of the best performing varieties: PSB RC18 still stands out, he said.

PSB, or the Philippine Seeds Board has long been replaced by the National Seed Industry Council, and hundreds of rice varieties have been promoted, but RC 18 remains among the best performers.

In a field experiment on the agronomic response RC 18, a lowland rice, grown under different water, spacing and nutrient management, shows that the variety may not need continuous flooding to produce high grain yield.

Study shows that PSB RC18 under soil-saturated but not fully flooded was significantly higher than under continuous flooding, so this needs less irrigation saving half of the water usually required for most later varieties.

And while plant height was reduced in no flooding conditions, this shows its resistance to lodging even at high grain yield.

And the rice variety can subsist on goat manure and compost mixture of madre de cacao, goat manure, rice straw and carbonized rice hull producing the same grain yield as the expensive inorganic fertilizer.

For years, Filipino farmers have used transplanting than direct seeding method, a lot of seedlings die in the transplanting process, significantly reducing yields.

Storage of dried seeds also matter, Opada adds, as improperly dried seeds do not germinate, and the farmer tends to lose about half of the seeds he germinates for transplanting.

As rice technicians insist 40 kilograms of inbred seeds is enough for a hectare, while 50 kilograms is for hybrid rice, farmers have been complaining this is not enough.

Many have also theorized that the devolution has something to do with the degrading system the country is looking at its rice industry.

Farmers do not have much information about the new technologies, and they insist on the faulty traditions they have grown into, that they even plant on soils not suitable for rice, because they were not taught. So, if the rice harvest fails, they heap on inputs, which add up to the costs, compounded by the wrong practices, so, bringing the costs of rice down could prove a problem, if these factors in the value chain are not fixed.

Here, research should clear things out and the solutions in each link in the value chain could actually help the country achieve Beynte’ng Bigas, Opada sums.

Part of the actions for DA now is to establish a multi-year plan to address the value chain in a roadmap to 2030, that which includes a disaster proof agriculture infrastructure and energy efficient low maintenance cost structures to actually bring the costs down. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

FOOD SUFFICIENCY BRIEFING. Information officers in Bohol gathered to know about the Department of Agriculture’s plan in bringing the cost of rice down, one which found many critics. But then, if all the issues in the rice value chain is fixed, there is actually hope, said rice technicians during the briefing. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)