Piñol to check US goats imported to help dairy industry

MANILA, Philippines (Philippines News Agency) -- To improve the country's dairy industry, incoming Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel "Manny" Piñol said he will immediately order an inventory of goats bought into the country as agricultural aid to check which are producing milk.

 

"If they are not, then the merchants and those responsible for the purchase of these goats will be held accountable," the incoming Agriculture chief said.

 

According to Piñol, the old dairy goats were among thousands brought into the country from the United States under a US government program to help the dairy industry in the Philippines.

 

US Public Law 480 was enacted in 1954 in line with the US policy of using its agricultural productivity to enhance the food security of developing countries and the determination of the importing country's capacity (Philippines) of improving its food security.

 

Under the program, Piñol said the US government granted hundreds of millions of pesos in a sincere effort to improve the dairy industry, which as of now produces only one percent of the total milk requirements of the country.

 

He, however, claimed that corruption got in the way of the implementation of the program, which could have made money for small farmers.

 

Instead of buying pedigreed goats, which could have improved the genetics of local goats, old goats discarded by dairy farmers in the US were included in the shipment, he claimed.

 

"The goat merchants have been doing this for many years now and have been raking in money to the disadvantage of both the US taxpayers who are spending for the program and the Filipino farmers who are supposed to benefit from it," he said.

 

"These goat merchants, however, have a problem with me. A few days from now, I will be taking over the Department of Agriculture, the agency which is handling the implementation of PL 480 through one of its bureaus, the Animal Industry," he said.

 

"Their problem is that I am a goat raiser and I know what a good dairy goat is. In fact, I could identify the breed of a dairy goat by just looking at its features. Not only that, I know most of the outstanding dairy goat breeders in the US and I know that many of the goats brought to the country did not come from them or are discards from small dairy farms," he said.

 

The incoming DA chief said he will make sure that the supposed shipment of dairy goats from the US worth over P100 million as part of PL 480 will not include old and discarded dairy goats.