Feed is one of the most critical inputs to the swine and poultry industries in the Philippines. It represents roughly 60 percent of the total cost to produce pork, poultry meat and eggs. Because of the critical role of feeds to these industries, feed production or feed milling has evolved into a multi-billion-peso support industry to animal and fish production.

To date, the Philippine feed milling industry is one of the biggest and most organized support industries in the country, providing feeds to practically all species of domesticated poultry, livestock and aquatic animals. Its biggest clients, however, are the swine and poultry industries. Around 1,059.05 metric tons of feed rations for poultry and swine, was produced in 2006 representing 88.24% of the total feed produced in that year.

The feed milling industry also provides business opportunities to local entrepreneurs and employment to the Filipino work force. It serves as the major market to corn and other crop by products (e.g. rice bran and copra meal) thus ensuring income to crop farmers.

The most common feed ingredients used by the Philippine Feed Milling Industry are yellow corn, soybean oil meal, rice bran, copra meal, fishmeal, and wheat and wheat by products. Cassava and sweet potato meals, brewer’s yeast and ipil-ipil leaf meal are also used as feed ingredients at a lesser extent. Among these feed ingredients corn is considered the most critical, as it represents about 50% of formulated animal feed rations. In fact, during the past decade corn was considered as the bottleneck of both the feed milling and animal industries in the country. However, with the implementation of an aggressive corn development program by government, local production and supply of corn has somehow stabilized. Recently, quality and prices of locally produced yellow corn are already competitive with imports.

The recent scenario on corn production and the increasing trend in the local production and consumption of pork and poultry products paint a positive outlook for the local feed milling industry. However, there is still the challenge to achieve quality, efficiency and stability in feed production for the local industry to withstand global competition. To enhance the feed milling sector’s global competitiveness, government should collaborate with the private sector in instituting policy reforms on importation, pricing and trade, in the development of technology and information support systems and in the establishment of critical infrastructure and facilities.