Got milk?

In some supermarkets and grocery stores, baby formula is displayed on shelves either with locked glass panels or located behind payment counters.

Whenever I ask why, I get the same explanation: the milk is among the top targets of shoplifters.

Considering the prices of baby formula, I can understand why people with limited income will resort to stealing food for their young children.

Yesterday, Wyeth Bonakid for ages 1 to 3 was priced online at P1,210 for a two-kilo pack. High-nutrition S-26, the growing-up milk in our family, which I loved eating in powdered form all the way to my pre-adolescent years, was priced at P2,934 to P3,430 for a 1.8-kilo can. PediaSure Plus for kids ages 1 to 3 was priced at a whopping P8,676 for a 2.4-kilo pack; for older kids, it’s P11,683 for a 3.60-kilo pack.

The National Dairy Authority reports that demand for milk in the country outstrips supply. Domestic milk production is dismal, accounting for only one percent of national consumption, the NDA said.

This is mystifying; I thought there has always been a robust domestic demand for all types of milk products, from infant formula to growing-up milk to full cream and low fat for adults.

It’s good to know that the NDA aims to ramp up domestic milk production to 80 million liters a year by 2028.

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Some of the reasons I can think of for our low milk production: Asians are supposedly lactose-intolerant, and as for babies, breast milk is best for them. Plus tropical climate is not ideal for dairy production.

But foreigners have asked me: most Filipinos are reared on baby formula; do we become lactose-intolerant only in adulthood?

Having been a milk drinker my entire life, I don’t know the answer. In my childhood, we even had fresh carabao milk delivered regularly to our house in Tondo, in an unmarked bottle with a bunched-up banana leaf as stopper. We would heat it before drinking. I loved skimming the lactoderm or film that formed as the milk simmered briefly.

Those milk deliveries have vanished forever. These days I’m glad to have carabao milk produced in Nueva Ecija available in supermarkets. But this is milk from buffalo that we originally imported from Brazil. The taste, though rich, is inferior to the milk produced by our native water buffalo – the carabao milk that I enjoyed in my childhood.

Joseph Estrada, during his stint as senator, was ridiculed for his low legislative output, which included a bill on carabao propagation. But he got that one right: we should propagate the carabao not just as a beast of burden but also for its top-grade milk.

As provided under Republic Act 7307, the Philippine Carabao Act of 1992, the Philippine Carabao Center was set up in the Science City of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija. I visited it shortly after its establishment and saw that what was being propagated was not our carabao, which loves wallowing in the mud, but the Murrah from Brazil.

This is a massive black buffalo that’s bathed twice a day. No mud baths for the Murrah, and no human visitors who might track in germs; I wasn’t allowed to touch any animal for manual milking. Instead I watched as the milk, drawn out mechanically, spurted into large containers attached to the tops of posts that lined the milking area.

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Our native carabao doesn’t produce as much milk as the Murrah. But the taste of carabao milk is superior, which makes excellent mozzarella and other cheeses plus the most decadent pastillas or milk pastries.

Talavera, Nueva Ecija is home to the privately run DVF dairy farm, producer of my favorite fresh carabao milk, which fortunately is available in certain Metro Manila supermarkets.

Considering the high domestic demand for milk, plus all the products with milk as an ingredient, we should be ramping up local milk production and expanding our dairy industry.

It’s been said that the Philippines lacks the particular variety of grass – like those in global milk export leader New Zealand – that is best for dairy cattle feed. But our handful of major local dairy producers are showing that it’s possible to produce top-grade milk in the Philippines. Apart from excellent fresh cow and carabao milk, they also produce high-quality whole milk, yogurt, half-and-half and luscious ice cream.

Still, the NDA hopes that with improved feed quality, milk production can be raised from the current daily average of 8-10 liters per cow to 15-16 liters.

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Our carabao and cow milk can compete with the milk in Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture, whose dairy industry accounts for much of its economic output.

Hokkaido is the home base of Royce Chocolate. While the cacao is surely 100 percent imported from different countries – this is a crop that grows best in warm climate – I’m sure the locally sourced milk is one of the reasons for the melt-in-the-mouth luscious quality of the processed chocolate.

Also thanks to the quality of the milk, Hokkaido produces excellent cheese, cream and butter. Its cheesecake, milk bread and related products have become world famous including in the Philippines. Its dairy farms and cafes offering cheesecakes are all-season top tourist draws.

In our country, it’s not just the sustained high price of sugar (really, can’t the three favored importers and their cohorts moderate their greed?) that’s made the prices of your favorite ensaymada and other bakeshop goodies soar over the past year, but also the prices of butter, cheese and other dairy ingredients (and recently, eggs).

Since the COVID lockdowns, the price of Anchor (100 percent butter), for example, has shot up by about 50 percent. Inflation for Magnolia dairy products during the same period has hovered at 25 to 30 percent.

Milk can include blended oils, but it will be less nutritious and the taste of course will be different.

For the school feeding program, which is meant to supplement the lack of nutrients in the daily diet of underprivileged grade school children, obviously it’s best that the milk distributed is 100 percent milk.

Anchor pure butter is imported from New Zealand. Visiting some dairy farms in that picturesque country pre-pandemic, I met several Filipino workers who were recruited from our farming areas. Such jobs can be created in the Philippines.

Generation of jobs and livelihoods, stable supply and lower prices of dairy products, tourism potential – there are many positive aspects that make the local dairy industry deserving of more government attention.

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