TAIWANESE experts urged the Philippine government to start investing more in research so it could exploit the vast potential of its duck industry, both for egg-laying and meat purposes.

Dr. Lee Shuen Rong and Dr. Jeng-Fang Andrew Huang, officials of the Livestock Research Institute (LRI) of Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture, said the Arroyo administration should emulate the Taiwanese government, which is spending NT$10 million yearly for the research programs of its duck industry.

Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture also reproduces good-quality breeders and makes these available to farmers at reasonable prices.

“The secret of our duck industry lies in government’s policy to support research in duck production,” the experts said after visiting duck farms in the Philippines recently, upon the invitation of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (Meco) in Taipei.

Through this, the experts said the Philippines will be able to identify and breed more prolific egg-layers to increase the industry’s efficiency.

Compared with Taiwan, which has over 30 million ducks, the Philippines only has a total duck population of over 11 million.

Of this total, less than two million are Muscovy or locally known bibe, mostly raised in the provinces for meat.

Rong said the country can also develop a duck-meat industry through the importation of good Pekin breeders for infusing to the country’s meat flocks. Likewise, they said feed and nutritional requirements of ducks must be carefully studied.

Currently, the Philippines has no broiler-duck industry as the majority of its duck meat comes from those culled from egg-layer flocks.

Felix Valenzuela, deputy executive director of the Department of Agriculture’s Livestock Development Council, said they will recommend to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to send stakeholders to Taiwan to observe its duck-production system in the aftermath of the visit of the Taiwanese experts.

Roque Mamon, technical officer of Meco, said ducks rank second to chicken in terms of economic importance to the Philippines as a source of eggs and meat.

Mamon said in 2006, the value of production of duck eggs was P2.8 billion amounting to 50,030 metric tons, or 25 percent of total egg consumption in Southeast Asia.

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TAIWANESE experts urged the Philippine government to start investing more in research so it could exploit the vast potential of its duck industry, both for egg-laying and meat purposes.