“ICT
and My Work”
"Towards
better nutrition, higher levels of income and improved general well-being of
the overwhelming sector, the rural farming families... through the
conservation, propagation and promotion of water buffalo as important source of
milk and meat, in addition to draft power and hide."
For over several
centuries, the carabao has been in the main frame of the total picture of
Philippine agricultural development and achievements, though not very much
underscored. This is because no other animal is favored as the indispensible
mainstay in the country’s dominant industry. Judging from its appearance, the
water buffalo may not at once earn a high regard. But considering its
contribution to mankind, the water buffalo is proving to be of man’s best
sources for beautiful things in life. Improving the Philippine carabao is the
logical approach in order to benefit most from the full potentials of this
animal. Its improvement is not a remote possibility. Although the need for
improving the carabao was already felt many years ago, nothing much has been
done about it.
The Philippine
Carabao Center harnessed the potentials of modern reproductive biotechnology in
the genetic improvement of water buffaloes. With the presence now of
genetically superior stocks, the PCC is more than able to carry out its massive
genetic improvement program. Modern biotechnology refers to the transfer of
genes from one living organism to another. Naturally, the genes being
transferred are from animals evaluated to be superior in several or
specifically ascertained aspects. Among biotechnologies are artificial
insemination (AI), multiple ovulation and embryo transfer (MOET), in vitro
embryo production, (IVEP), vitrification, ovum pick-up ( OPU),
cryopreservation, semen sexing and somatic cell nuclear transfer ( SCNT). These
technologies are deemed to be means of fast-tracking the vision of PCC to
upgrade the genetic component of the swamp buffaloes with the ultimate aim of
transforming them to become superior producers of milk and meat.
There are now many
improved breeds of carabao in the country. They are bigger, meatier, and the
female, producing more milk. These are the results of PCC’s continuing effort
to improve the carabao breed. The improve breeds of carabaos that are seen by
the public are now endearlingy called “superior carabaos”.
Communities,
including groups of people with common interest, need engines of growth and
development. These engines, when determined to be working appropriately,
effectively and efficiently, can rise to excellent levels the totality of the
communities that run them. A carabao-based industry in the country is an
exciting prospect. With the many products that the water buffaloes or the
carabaos have successfully tendered as business enterprise in many parts of the
globe, its adoption, pursuit and whole-hearted fosterage is deemed highly
feasible and can work wonders for the entrepreneurs. The agency charged to
assiduously develop and promote a national carabao development program, which
is the Philippine Carabao Center is pursuing an institutionalized carabao-based
industry in the country.
Even today, with
the situation obtaining in the small hold farming system in the country, the
Philippine carabao continues to play important roles. Although it is slowly
being displaced by the hand tractor in irrigated rice-producing areas, the
farmers still find use for the power of the carabao. Where the machine can’t
work well, as in bends and areas near the dikes of the rice paddies, this
animal is harnessed to pull the plow. It is this animal which is called upon to
pull the cart loaded with sacks of newly threshed palay in the soft, muddy
terrain of the ricefield where the machine is unable to penetrate.
In due time, the
improved breed of the Phillipne carabao is looked up to as the “beast that
possesses multiple beauties in it”.
