A total of 4,568 undernourished children in the province of Aurora have started to benefit from the nationwide School-Based Milk Feeding Program (SBFP).
Dr. Ronnie Domingo, OIC Executive Director of the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Carabao Center (DA-PCC), said on Tuesday the Schools Division Office (SDO) of Aurora has begun to distribute sterilized canned milk to beneficiaries with assistance from their parents.
The distribution was done simultaneously with the provision of the students’ learning modules.
Domingo said a total of 159,880 cans of sterilized carabao’s milk were delivered in bulk to the designated drop-off points in Dingalan and San Luis, both in Aurora, by the Licaong Agricultural Cooperative (LAC), one of the DA-PCC-assisted cooperatives in Luzon and milk supplier for the program.
Under the program, each child will receive 180 milliliters (ml) of sterilized canned milk every day for 35 feeding days.
The DA-PCC has contracted a third-party retort packer to pack an initial four million cans of sterilized milk through a retort facility using some 40,000 liters of carabao’s milk supplied by local farmers’ cooperatives in Luzon.
The products will be distributed in Regions 1 to 3 and parts of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
The retort process allows fresh carabao’s milk to be sterilized in aluminum cans without the need for preservatives.
Through this improved packaging, the shelf life of carabao’s milk is extended from seven days to six months, hence, more school children will be able to drink the nutritious milk, particularly those in previously unreachable areas, and those with no electricity or limited storage facilities.
Aside from the extended shelf life, the sterilized canned milk can easily be transported, stored under room temperature without spoilage, and delivered in bulk rather than on a daily basis.
LAC is also set to deliver 153,725 cans of sterilized carabao’s milk to Bulacan; 4,000 to Mabalacat City in Pampanga and 24,219 to Olongapo City before the end of this month.
Other DepEd SDOs that will distribute sterilized canned carabao’s milk to their respective beneficiaries include Zambales, Tarlac Province, Pampanga, Ilocos Sur, Abra, Pangasinan, San Fernando City, Kalinga, Tabuk City, Bataan, and Nueva Vizcaya.
Ma. Theresa Sawit, DA-PCC’s senior science research specialist and one of the focal persons for the project, earlier said the program is very timely as it will help boost their immune system against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and improve the children’s milk drinking habit as they grow up.
Last year, the DA-PACC forged a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the DepEd in implementing the national milk feeding program in accordance with the objectives of Republic Act (RA) 11037, the “Masustansyang Pagkain para sa Batang Pilipino Act.”
Under the agreement, the DA-PCC tapped its assisted dairy farmer cooperatives to serve as the milk suppliers, while the DepEd allocated a budget of PHP7.09 million for the purchase of carabao’s milk.
In June 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte signed RA 11037 to address the problem of undernutrition among Filipino children through the National Feeding Program of which one of the components is the Milk Feeding Program with fresh milk or fresh milk-based product as an additional component to cycle-menu hot meals in the SBFP. (PNA)
