In Pangasinan, there’s now a town of milk and money

By Yolanda Sotelo
Inquirer Northern Luzon

LAOAC, Pangasinan – Three tall structures at a Maraboc village farm here always catch the attention of motorists.

These are newly constructed silos where cattle feed, mostly corn, are stored.

Around the towering structures are corrals where 360 cows imported from New Zealand have been temporarily herded.

The compound seems out-of-place on this flat palay plain, but a Pangasinan congressman said it proclaimed that this sleepy town would soon become the dairy capital of Northern Luzon.

Soon, selected farmers will be getting New Zealand cows, which they will feed and milk until they can produce enough supply to sell to neighboring towns, said Representative Mark Cojuangco.

The proposed dairy trade is a congressional project that will not disrupt the town’s thriving rice and corn production, he said.

Milk may become a secondary trade for farmers still struggling to earn a living.

The project should be able to produce enough milk in two to three months to develop a thriving retail market for farmers, Cojuangco said.

It took the district five years to raise capital.

Cojuangco said: “Every year, I saved some money [from my countryside development fund] and I asked [allocations] also from the senators, which I deposited [in] the National Dairy Authority. We bought land in Laoac where we established the silos.”

The National Dairy Authority is the agency tasked to execute the Laoac dairy program.

Last year, the government tried to jumpstart the program by distributing cattle to farmers as part of an alternative livelihood campaign. But the animals were immediately recalled when 10 cows died.

This time, the government will target rice or corn farmers who are unable to make their fields productive. They will form the first batch of dairy farmers in Laoac, the congressman said.

These farmers would have to suspend corn production and prioritize their cattle in order to make the project work, he said.

The municipal agriculture office of Laoac is currently surveying the town’s farming community to determine who will benefit from the program.

Cojuangco said that under the project, each farmer would be assigned five milking cows, from which he could earn up to P30,000 in monthly profit.

“We want those taking part in the program to focus on dairy production only, nothing else. We observed that when the recipient has other sources of income, the project may fail because he or she is not [devoted to] the project … which is why we are looking for beneficiaries who will commit to dairy production only,” he said.

Under the program, there will be a centralized source of feed which will be stored in the silos. The feed will be composed mainly of corn plant tops collected for free during “tadaw” – the season when farmers harvest corn.

Because the silos are sealed, the chopped corn plants are deprived of oxygen, enabling the stock to last for as long as two years

Cows will never be deprived of food even during the dry months.

“Cows eat a lot – from 40 to 60 kilos a day. So we really need to ensure availability of feeds or they will not produce milk,” Cojuangco said.

The chopped corn stalks are mixed with minerals, protein and vitamins to produce feeds called TMR, or totally mixed ration.

The TMR, which costs P1 a kilo, will be rationed to farmers twice a day.

“We will also collect milk twice a day,” Cojuangco said.

The farmers earn by selling milk to a central sterilization and processing plant at P20 a liter.

Since a cow can produce an average of eight liters of milk a day, farmers may expect up to P800 a day.

The sterilization equipment had already been shipped to Maraboc village, said Philip Villanueva, the dairy project manager.

“We are just waiting for the technical people to commission it,” he said.

For the moment, farmers who avail themselves of the cows may pasteurize the milk manually, purely for household consumption.

If 300 cows produce 10 liters of milk a day, 3,000 liters of fresh milk may be available for the market, Cojuangco said.

The plan is to put up more silos to serve a minimum of 1,000 heads of cow to be dispersed in Pangasinan’s fifth district.

“We hope to get some of the fund for the district. Milk is really nutritious and is much better than rice and noodles,” he said.