Assisted reproduction leads to more milk, healthy carabaos

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is only one percent sufficient in milk. This means 99 percent of dairy products being consumed in the country is imported.

Cattle provides 64 percent of the total local milk volume while buffalos  contribute only 34 percent.

One of the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) major initiatives is its milk feeding program.

“But where will we get this if we are only one percent sufficient?” asked Eufrocina. Atabay of the DA’s Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) during her talk on “The Role of Assisted Reproduction in Dairy Industry Development” at the S&T Agri-Biotech forum held recently.

“What aggravates this situation is that there is a low number of dairy herd population both in buffalo and cattle.  Another problem is that the animals are being left unproductive for a long time and this will result to low reproduction efficiency and economic loss,” added Atabay who specializes in reproductive biotechnology.

Hence, the need for the development of the dairy industry is obvious, especially with the increasing human population both on a global and national scale. This suggests an increasing demand for food sufficiency and agricultural sustainability.

At the core of this mission is PCC whose objective is to increase dairy herd buildup in the Philippines and improve the herd’s genetic quality.

One of the technologies that Atabay and her team employ for dairy herd buildup is artificial insemination (AI). This process of simulated reproduction involves extracting sperm from a quality male buffalo and injecting the sperm into the reproductive tract of a female buffalo.

PCC’s AI services are done nationwide by trained private village-based AI technicians.

AI is used to breed animals with higher productivity for both milk and meat by harnessing select animals’ excellent genetic materials.

Two months after the AI, the team checks the presence of fetus inside the carabao. It also uses pregnancy test on the animal to determine if the breeding is successful “so we can detect non-pregnancy at the soonest time possible,” Atabay said.

Another technology for enhanced genetic improvement for better quality carabaos is embryo transfer. The scientists collect quality embryos from one female buffalo for transfer to another female buffalo. Theactual transfer is undertaken using AI as well. 

They also do in vitro fertilization, or the incubation of the sperm and egg in a petri dish. After this, they do further culture and then perform embryo transfer. 

Sometimes, the group induces the buffalo to produce more eggs in order to produce more embryos. Excess embryos are preserved for future use.

Some of these processes are aided by ultrasound technology such as in ovum pick-up, a process in which scientists collect immature egg cells from a superior carabao via aspiration with the help of ultrasound.

“As we employ these technologies, we are ensuring the sustainability of the production of our local dairy animals so we can avoid the importation of live animals for a sustainable and globally competitive dairy industry,” Atabay said.