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[av_heading heading=’Improvement of the Philippine native pig’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY JULIO P. YAP JR.
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THE largest among the livestock and poultry industries in the country is swine production which is P191 billion.
It ranks next to rice with 18.28 percent contribution to the total value of agricultural production.
Swine production plays a major role in ensuring the country’s food security by providing about 60 percent of the total animal meat consumption of Filipinos.
The Philippine swine industry is ranked eighth in the world in terms of the volume of pork production and number of breeding sows.
However, majority or about 65 percent of the pigs in the Philippines are kept by small hold pig raisers.
Despite being dynamic and technologically advanced, the local pig industry is still confronted with inefficiency of production due to low sow productivity, high mortality due to inefficient diagnostic tool, and lack of native pig genetic resource conservation, improvement and utilization initiative.
Thus, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology supported research and development initiatives through the Industry Strategic science and technology Program for Swine.
This aims to address the current problems by developing technologies and systems that are expected to improve the productivity and production efficiency.
Through these initiatives, the program seeks to create new opportunities and increase the overall competitiveness of the swine industry.
To increase sow productivity, the Philippine Carabao Center and Bureau of Animal Industry in partnership with the Accredited Swine Breeders Association of the Philippines developed the application of gene markers in breeding and selection of breeder pigs.
This optimized 10 gene marker protocols associated to high litter size, fast growth rate, and meat qualities as well as seven markers for screening of genetic defects and disease resistance.
The adoption of the gene marker technology by the swine breeder farms is expected to increase productivity and efficiency in terms of number of pigs weaned and liveweight produced per sow per year.
To address the problem on high mortality due to diseases, researchers from the Central Luzon State University (CLSU) developed six LAMP protocols for common swine respiratory and gastrointestinal pathogens causing diseases.
CLSU has forged memoranda of agreement with three Regional Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratories (RADDLs) of the Department of Agriculture institutionalizing the LAMP assays to be part of their routine diagnostic protocol.
Related to improving farm productivity through better farm management and decision making, a Web-based Group Monitoring System for pigs was established.
Cooperating commercial piggery farm is currently testing the system.
In addition, a smartphone application was developed that can estimate body weight of pigs using captured images.
For the development of native pig breeds in the Philippines, initial breeding population was established and criteria for selecting of breeder native pig were developed.
On the other hand, native pig free-range management protocol is being developed.
The forage or pasture area were established and being maintained to provide the feed of the native pigs.
The development and improvement of Philippine native pig breed is expected to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for rural farming communities./PN
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