Biosphere Technology-Mohd Peter Davis

Malaysia's Deep Tropical Ruminant Production System Can Feed the World

Mohd Peter Davis¹ and N.Yogendran²

¹ITMA,Universiti Putra Malaysia and ²GIFT Sdn, Bhd.

INTRODUCTION

Over the last 25 years the authors have independently sought to understand and overcome the biological limitations to animal production in the humid tropics. Despite its tiny population, Malaysia during its 50 years of Independence and Malaya throughout 450 years of European colonisation has never produced more than half of its food. Ironically, the natural greenhouse rainforest climate supports the highest rate of biomass production in the world which has permitted the development of 5 million hectares of plantations including the production of 60 percent of the palm oil export market. Even with a rapidly industrializing economy, Malaysia has made no progress in food self-sufficiency over the last 25 years (Fatimah, 2007). This is particularly apparent in ruminant production with self-sufficiency levels of only 5% for dairy products, 8% for mutton and 23% for beef.

European-type grazing of animals in the Malaya/Malaysian humid tropics has a sorry history due to four basic biological problems that have proved extremely difficult to overcome by conventional farming methods (Davis, 2008a):

1. Poor productivity of temperate animals and cr osses with tropical animals in the humid tropics;
2. Heat Stress;
3. High tropical disease and parasite burden; and
4. Poor nutrition from native grasses and high maintenance of improved pastures to keep out the jungle species

Research on intensive sheep production in raised wooden animal sheds at Universiti Putra Malaysia during 1989-1997 overcome these biological limitations and disease-free prime lambs were produced in 4 months solely on PKC (palm kernel cake) diets (Davis et al 1995; Davis and Zainur, 1995). However, in 1997 further progress at UPM in sheep self-sufficiency was halted. A grant application for a large scale prototype commercial sheep shed was rejected, along with most other agricultural research grants. Under free trade pressure from the World Trade Organisation, Malaysia and other developing countries downgraded agriculture to a ‘sunset industry’ and increasingly relied on food imports which have escalated in price, causing the present world food crisis.

Meanwhile, the second author (N. Yogendran) continued his self-funded entrepreneur farming system and developed a new standard of intensive farming for chickens, goats, sheep, dairy cows and pigs based on novel evaporatively cooled GIFT shelters (Yogendran, http://www.giftpharma.com.my).With the subsequent development of grass plantations supplying housed ruminants with highly nutritious cut grass, the groundbreaking Gift Farming System is becoming known internationally as the Deep Tropical ruminant production system (Davis 2008b).

MATERIALS and METHODS

The Malaysian farm photographs in Figures 1 to 3 serve to briefly demonstrate the radical departure from traditional grazing and incorporate 25 years of commercial inventions and innovations by the private company Genetic Improvement and Farm Technology (GIFT) Sendirian Berhad.These wide ranging inventions and practices, demonstrating the commercial art of animal production, will be the subject of later technical papers to enable the scientific community to adopt and further develop this Deep Tropical animal production system. Preliminary studies on prototype commercial farms indicate a threefold increase in milk and meat production per hectare of land, compared to the best dairy and sheep farms in New Zealand.

DISCUSSION

The Deep Tropical ruminant production system simultaneously solves the four biological limitations to animal production in the humid tropics, by housing animals in cool-climate barns and hand feeding with a mixture of concentrates and young cut grass from all-year-round productive grass plantation. Grass is cheap to produce in humid tropical grass plantations and is only useful for ruminants, greatly reducing feed costs as the major expense in animal production. Instead of the 500 year long unsuccessful attempts to change the genetics of domestic animals to suit the hardships of the humid tropical environment, the environment itself is changed with climate housing to a summer Mediterranean climate which now suits all breeds of domestic animals in the world. This stunningly simple solution improves the health, nutrition and welfare of what we term happy domestic animals. By providing ruminants with ‘spring’ quality young cut grass the animals can perform to their full genetic potential, without limiting their feed intake due to heat stress or wasting feed energy by searching for nutritious grass or keeping warm. Now the most productive breeds of ruminants, selected over 10,000 years of artificial selection and several centuries of scientific selection in more temperate climates, can be air-freighted from disease-free temperate countries and mass produced in the humid tropics. A high level of bio-security can be maintained, similar to enclosed house chicken production since the ruminants, protected by vaccinations, are no longer exposed to the tropical diseases and parasites encountered by grazing animals. Now it is possible to replace backyard farming which threatens both the human food supply as well as human health, particularly with viral diseases such as bird flu crossing the species barrier (Davis, 2006). Malaysia’s Deep Tropical animal production system can spread almost immediately to other rainforest regions such as Borneo, West Africa and the Amazon. As plentiful supplies of nuclear desalination water come on stream in 10-15 years time, bio-security milk, prime beef and prime lamb production can spread throughout the tropical regions, even deserts, allowing the populations in developing countries to achieve Western standards of human nutrition.

REFERENCES

Davis M.P, Rajion M.A. and Fatimah C.T.N.I., 1995. A new sheep shed which overcomes heat stress and disease losses in the Malaysian humid tropics. Ann. Zootech. 44 Suppl.324 Elsevier/INDR.

Davis M.P. 2006. Biosphere Technology in the Nuclear Age. 21^st Century Science & Technology, Fall-Winter, p86-93.

Davis M.P. 2008a. Malaysia’s agricultural breakthrough, with nuclear power, can feed the world. Executive Intelligence Review (Washington), 25 April, p34-38.

Davis M.P.2008a. Agriculture in the tropics: seeking to be self-sufficient. Executive Intelligence Review (Washington), 13 June, p34-35.

Fatimah M.A. et al, 2007 in “50 Years of Malaysian Agriculture” UPM Press.