DESPITE the various factors affecting the country’s native pig industry, the resiliency of the stakeholders allowed them to overcome the different challenges and gave them the opportunity to bounce back stronger, wiser, and adoptable to modern technologies.
According to Philippine Native Pig Owners Network Association, Inc. (PNPONAI) president Maximillan “Ian” B. Cabriga, the native pig industry has a lot of potentials that need to be tapped in order to generate business prospects, at the same time, provide employment opportunities for the small players.
On the other hand, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD) has emphasized the importance of the native pig industry.
Native animals are considered as an important component of most agricultural production system in the rural areas.
These native animals could augment food supplies, provide high quality protein food, and source of livelihood, and one of these animals, which is common in the Philippines, is the native pig.
The native pig offers so much importance in terms of providing additional income, high quality protein food, and socio-cultural and economic services, particularly during cultural celebrations and ceremonies.
Due to this factor, PCAARRD has been supporting R&D initiatives through its Industry Strategic science and technology (S&T) Program (ISP) for Swine.
The program aims to address the current problems by developing technologies and systems that are expected to improve the productivity and production efficiency.
Other important characteristics of the native pig include its adaptability to local environment conditions, apparent resistance to diseases, and the unique texture and taste of its meat.
These are enough reasons to invest on R&D initiatives to improve the country’s native pig.
Research and development investments on native pig breeding are geared towards enhancing the potentials of the said animal as a source of livelihood for small rural dwellers, raw materials for the production of pork-based ethnic delicacies, and of genetic materials to respond to changing consumer demands and to climate change.
It was learned that R&D activities on native pigs are being conducted to establish breeding true-to-type populations that are uniform in physical characteristics with predictable production performance and consistent product quality.
R&D activities also aim to improve production performance and product quality while conserving the adaptability traits and maintaining genetic diversity.
Ongoing R&D activities on Philippine native pig include their phenotypic and genetic characterization, breeding and selection, free range native pig production management, forage production, and marketing studies.
Cabriga said they also intend to set-up the standards on breeding, nutrition, and health management of native pigs.
He emphasized that the demand for the native pig’s meat has been rising, and yet the resources remained low, thus, the need to address the deficiency, which he said could provide a brighter prospect for the local entrepreneurs.
But in order to boost the production of native pigs, there is the need to conduct research and development, which Cabriga said, are among the priorities of the PNPONAI, together with the corresponding market research and development. (jaypeeyap@ymail.com/PN)
