Department of Agriculture wants local agricultural products to meet global standards

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture is putting in place measures to ensure that Philippine agricultural products, specifically meat exports, meet global standards.

The DA, through the Philippine Carabao Center, is hoping to improve its ability to do research and development on animal breeding and screen for unwanted imported animal diseases.

Using funding from the United States’ Public Law 480 commodity loan program, the PCC has announced plans to build a P300-million biotechnology facility under a three-year multi-commodity research and development program funded under the PL 480 program.

The PL480 is a commodity loan program which the Philippines previously tapped for its rice importations.

The PCC is the DA’s biotechnology center for ruminants.         

It is expanding its facilities to serve as a common facility for dairy and meat animals such as carabaos, cattle, goat, and sheep.

According to Dr. Libertado C. Cruz, PCC executive director, the US-funded facility would allow the PCC to do research and development work not only on carabaos, but also on other commodities.

PCC will maximize the use of marker assisted selection (MAS) to choose the best animal breeds to reproduce.

The PCC needs to acquire a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequencer that costs anywhere from P18 million to P20 million.

The DNA sequencer helps researchers identify animals that have superior traits such as those for high milk production.  Animals that have the DNA markers associated with the good traits are mated with other superior animals. 

Their semen are also preferred for distribution for crossbreeding with native animals through artificial insemination (AI).

The capability of the PCC to determine molecular markers will enhance the country’s ability to conduct quarantine or sanitary and phytosanitary processes for screening animals against diseases prior to importation.

Dr. Cruz noted that in the past, there had been importations of animals with diseases that spread throughout the country because the PCC did not have the quarantine ability that, at present, requires technical capabilities at the molecular level.

The DNA sequencer’s capability for traceability through molecular markers will be useful in the country’s long-term plan to export meat products.

Dr. Cruz stressed that traceability is now a food safety requirement for export. 

The global market is seriously concerned about the origin of products from the consumer end to a product’s country of origin or original farm source.

“Our livestock will only be profitable when we go to the export market. But when talking about export market, they talk about traceability. We need to put that in place – a system that will trace a product’s supply path from slaughterhouse to plate,” Dr. Cruz said.

PCC is also expanding its cryobank, a gene bank containing embryos, semen, blood, and tissues of all animals – native and foreign breeds – that have to be preserved.

Preservation through cryobanking in below zero degree temperature enables researchers to reproduce a specific breed predicted to posses a traits that have important economic value such as high milk production or good meat quality (good marbling, tender meat, high-protein).

Dr. Cruz explained that “the indigenous breed has distinct advantage which we don’t require at the moment, but in the future can be valuable. One is resistance to disease, resistance to heat, and many others that have not yet been identified. The problem is genes that regulate this resistance have not yet been identified,” he said.

PCC’s cryobank is the only animal gene bank in the Philippines.

The cryobank is located at the PCC headquarters in Munoz, Nueva Ecija.

The cryobank has a total of 76,249 accessions including purebreds and crossbreds of carabao and cattle. The cryobank also keeps 2,168 native germplasm. The PCC has started ranking its own buffalos according to their expected breeding value (EBV). It has 881 animals that have EBVs which indicate milk production record of female buffaloes.

For male buffaloes, researchers determine their milk production potential based on the milk production of their female offspring.