The country has vast natural resources for ruminant production. It has approximately 5-10M ha of grassland/shrubland areas. around 1.5M ha of these are classified as native pastures, while 252,000 ha of the native pastures are under lease arrangements. A few hectares are improved pasture lands that can support 2.0 animal units (a.u.)/ha. Also, about 15.7M ha of forest lands are potentially available for ruminant production, particularly cattle. At stocking rate of 0.25 a.u./ha for unimproved pasture and forest lands and 2.0 a.u./ha for improved pasture lands, the potential annual ruminant population that can be supported by these resources is more than 4.3M head.

In addition, large quantities of crop residues/farm by-products are potentially available for ruminant feeding from 4.1M ha of rice land, 2.5M ha of corn land, 314,313 ha of sugarcane land, 3.1M ha of coconut land (Table 1).

The smallholder (backyard) and commercial sectors exploit separate natural resources for ruminant production, to wit:

• Smallholder production system
           -  Crop residues/farm by-products
           -  weeds
           -  tree/shrub leaves
           -  naturalized forage species, e.g. napier, guinea grass, centro, siratro
• Commercial production system
           -  native grasslands
           -  agro-industrial by-products such as spent grain, molasses, pineapple pulp, etc.
           -  improved grass/legume species
           -  forage corn (particularly for commercial cattle feedlot fattening operation)

The third natural resource, pasture under coconuts, is utilized by both commercial and backyard sectors.