DTRI Director is New UP Scientist, Commits Productive Life to Dairy Research
“Milk is not just an element to ensure nutrition. It is a matter of national security.”
This is one of the propelling reasons why Dr. Amado A. Angeles promised to devote 20 years of his productive life to dairy research. While it takes 200 years to develop the dairy industry from scratch, Dr. Angeles hopes that his research activities will significantly add to the 58 years that the men and women of the Dairy Training and Research Institute (DTRI) had built upon.
Recently appointed as UP Scientist I, Dr. Angeles was among the 18 UPLB faculty members newly awarded the prestigious title of UP Scientist for 2019-2021. He has published four papers in ISI-indexed journals, four papers in non-ISI-indexed international journals, 10 papers in national journals, and a total of 24 citations. He is currently the director of DTRI and Assistant Professor (Ruminant Nutrition and Production) at IAS.
While the title UP Scientist is strapped with great responsibility, Dr. Angeles has been aware of the challenges on taking research results beyond publishing in scientific journals. As with any other disciplines, researches in dairy science must be translated into practice. “It is not for the benefit of the scientific community alone. It must particularly benefit the dairy farmers,” said Dr. Angeles.
Dairy is one of the country’s commodities where more technology is needed. If compared with smaller animals like broilers, fatteners, and breeders as experimental units, dairy animals are very expensive. “This justifies the point that when you conduct experiments on dairy, it should be collaborative. Having collaboration with other farms, agencies, and stakeholders, you increase the number of experimental animals, hence, increase sensitivity of the research activity that you have,” Dr. Angeles stated.
The establishment of the Philippine Dairy Research Consortium (PDRC), initiated by Dr. Angeles in 2018, is the first step towards a nationwide collaborative research activity in dairy. It is composed of six universities: UPLB, Cagayan State University, Central Luzon State University, Bohol Island State University, Central Mindanao University, and University of South-eastern Philippines. The National Dairy Authority (NDA) and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (PCAARRD-DOST) are also part of the consortium.
Dr. Angeles hopes that more dairy curricular programs will come about as a result of this collaboration. He said that in addition to getting empirical data as results of experiments, popularity of dairy will increase because more faculty and researchers (including students) will be involved in dairy researches. The more popular dairy becomes as field of research, the higher the tendency that the universities will develop its curriculum on dairy science.
“The aspiration to grow the dairy industry cannot be done in a 5-year or 10-year period,” remarked Dr. Angeles. “It takes 200 years to develop it from scratch.” DTRI was established in 1962. If the 200 years is a picture of a fully developed dairy industry, then the Philippine dairy industry is relatively young. There is still more to accomplish. UPLB, being the premier institution on dairy, is blessed with men and women who painstakingly built DTRI from scratch around six decades ago. In that span of six decades, there were people who filled in the vacant spots—bringing DTRI and the whole Philippine dairy industry to what it is now. The whole country will continually be blessed through Dr. Angeles who is willing to carry forward the torch to a developed and vibrant Philippine dairy industry. (Mel Batocabe with information from AAAngeles. First published in Aggie Green and Gold October 2020 issue. )