The National Dairy Authority (NDA) said it will be importing cattle to increase the number of animals on the milking line to improve dairy productivity and achieve milk self-sufficiency.

Last Friday. 27 September, during the second Richmade Dairy Cattle Congress in Lipa, Batangas, NDA  Administrator Marcus Antonius Andaya said the government would be ‘aggressively importing’ cattle for local stock farms for the herd to multiply.

He added that the acclimatized offspring of these dairy cattle will be the ones to be distributed to local dairy farmers.

Additionally, five new stock farms are expected to be completed by yearend and be operational by early 2025. It is seen to increase the existing herd of nearly 80,000 dairy animals. 

From January to June 2024, milk output rose 15 percent, reaching 16,020 metric tons, accounting for 21 percent of the country’s total liquid milk supply, data from the NDA shows.

Besides importing dairy cattle, NDA is expanding herd sizes and providing training for farmers. Similarly, it plans to strengthen the local milk market share by coordinating with the commercial sector and the local milk producers regarding milk absorption of a certain portion of the locally produced milk.

NDA chief Andaya, thus, underscored that progress doesn’t happen in isolation but through multisectoral efforts.

“The future of the Philippine dairy industry depends on the collaboration between all stakeholders, and the NDA stands ready to assist and lead this endeavor,”  he said.

“When I learned that the country’s milk sufficiency is at 1 percent, with 99 percent being imported, I told myself that I am not going home. Give me more funding, and we will help the farmers and cooperatives produce more milk with the help of our stakeholders.”

Meanwhile, Dr. By Choi from Vietnam’s Vina Milk, one of the guest experts attending the event shared insights from the study on the Philippine dairy industry indicating a 10.2 percent growth rate in the market in 2022, which he said was "a double-digit growth figure you cannot ignore.”

The local milk production has surged by 30 percent over the past decade, he added.

NDA  earlier this year expressed its target of increasing the country’s milk production to 80 million liters by 2028.