DA unveils roadmap for animal feeds, nutrition

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is in the process of creating a roadmap to support the national animal feed and nutrition industry.

The roadmap aims to assist the livestock and poultry sectors, which have been facing challenges such as supply shortages and increased feed costs.

The agency issued an administrative order establishing the National Animal Feed Development Program (NAFDP) for a systematic governance of all plans, research, and development (R&D) projects and other animal nutrition initiatives.

“There is no sole national governing organization dedicated to harmonizing all these animal nutrition-related initiatives and addressing the challenges in animal nutrition other than production and the gaps among different livestock and poultry nutrition sectors,” the DA said.

The agency said the country currently lacks investments in the development of local feed resources and has no multispecies national database for feed ingredients.

The Philippines is also heavily dependent on most feed ingredients, like soybean which is mostly sourced from the US. In 2020, the country imported 2.75 million metric tons of soybean at P3.5 billion, based on data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The roadmap will lay down the short-, medium- and long-term plans, as well as identify strategic partners, stakeholders and key players for the animal feed and nutrition industry.

Based on the proposed  timeline, the NAFDP should start drafting a roadmap in the third quarter and should  be deliberated in a public consultation in the third quarter of next year.