A local joint venture has been initiated recently in the country and is expected to increase the Philippines’ dairy production in less than two years.
Metro Pacific Agro Ventures from the Philippines and LR GROUP from Israel officially launched their new partnership on dairy farming, with a ground breaking ceremony led by Jovy Hernandez, President of Metro Pacific Agro Ventures.
Under the new partnership, a new state-of-the-art dairy farm will be established in Bay, Laguna within the next 18 months.
The new modern dairy farm is expected to produce 6.5 million liters of fresh milk a year. This will significantly increase the dairy production capacity of the Philippines, which today is only minimal and heavily dependent on imports.
Based on available data from the United States Department of Agriculture, the Philippines imports 99 percent of its dairy requirement as domestic production. This cannot meet the annual demand of 2.9 million metric tons (MT) liquid milk equivalent, according to the National Dairy Authority (NDA). (Philippines: Dairy and Products Annual | USDA Foreign Agricultural Service).
The report further notes, “Following declines in demand in 2021 due to the pandemic, dairy imports are expected to recover in 2022 as the economy reopens, most of the population is vaccinated, and customers return to restaurants. Skim milk powder imports are forecast to reach 175,000 MT in 2022, 6 percent higher than the previous year, while fluid milk imports rise 4 percent to 115,000 MT over the same period.”
Cheese imports in 2022, still according to the report, was expected to continue the growth seen in 2021, increasing 4 percent in 2022 to 52,000 MT.
The new Laguna farm will have an initial capacity of 1,000 cows (out of them 600 milking cows) equipped with modern dairy farming technologies from Israel, including wearable cow-health monitoring devices for each cow in the herd, advanced milking control and monitoring systems, and others.
The Israel Embassy, in partnership with its Economic Mission, hosted the first meeting between the two parties in March 2022.
In a press statement by The Israel Embassy, it is mentioned that the venture is another way by Israel to contribute to food security, agricultural productivity, and employment in the Philippines.
