ASF continues to spread across the island of the Philippines slowing down the recovery of local production. With new outbreaks still affecting producers and limiting the movement of breeders and animal products across the different regions, herd repopulation remains slow with the lack of support and high risk of doing business.
JG Agroventures, Inc., forged a long-term agreement with PIC, the global leader in swine genetics, to establish and operate a breeder nucleus and multiplier farm that will significantly expand PIC’s capacity to produce breeders locally and disseminate genetic improvement to help Filipino farmers rebuild and improve the industry. Located on a biosecure site at the heart of Central Luzon in Nueva Ecija, this family farm owned by the Joson and Galicia family is a farrow-to-finish tunnel ventilated facility that will incorporate modern technologies in its design and construction and implement best practices in sustainable and healthy pig farming. A year ago, this was just a dream shared by their families — a mutual passion to help feed the nation and continue to create jobs for Filipinos. This fueled their plans to continue to grow to 5,000 sows to help the industry in the Philippines recover, become globally competitive and improve the quality of local pork.
The first batch of imported animals to stock the farm arrived on June 2023 at Clark Airport, Pampanga with 1,160 GGP breeders loaded from the PIC Apex Elite Farm in South Dakota, USA on a chartered Boeing747. Another plane load is planned to arrive in the next few months. Over the last 12 months, 11 PIC shipments of breeding animals and semen were imported into the Philippines from its Global Elite Herds to keep PIC breeder and commercial herds improving.
Vincent Borromeo, President of PIC Philippines, mentioned “we believe that a sustainable food system starts with animal breeding. With improved genetics and technology, we can help farmers harvest more kilos of quality pork using less inputs. We are committed to contributing to the food security of the country.”
PIC continues to expand its supply chain with genetic improvement units across the country and its focus on biosecurity. This will help serve the need for healthy breeders to accelerate the repopulation of herds affected by the ASF virus as well as to meet the expansion needed to keep up with country’s growing population and per capita consumption.
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