CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia led the inauguration and blessing of the province-owned liquid nitrogen plant together with Capitol department heads.
The plant is located at the back of the Cebu CFI building inside the Capitol compound.
In an interview, Provincial veterinarian Dr. Mary Rose Vincoy said the plant is in support of the artificial insemination program of the province to boost the stocks of cows, goats and carabaos. The machine was bought in Netherlands for around P11 million.
Vincoy described the plant as another economic enterprise facility of the province. The artificial insemination program is a new way of embedding semen using the modern technology to speed up the reproduction in farm animals.
The plant will ensure the correct temperature in preserving the semen. The semen is placed inside a mother tank and each mother tank carries 1,200 straws of semen from cows and other breed of animals.
In a separate interview, Garcia said she is now looking for the artificial insemination in horses in the province “to upgrade the stock of our horses here.”
“We have an old nitrogen plant, but it could only produce one mother tank. With this new liquid nitrogen plant, we can now produce four mother tanks a day” she said.
“We are the only source here in the Visayas that can produce four mother tanks a day. We are thinking of adding more mother tanks so we can store more semen to meet the demands,” she added.
The blessing was conducted by Fr. Dante Carido, followed by the ceremonial switch on. The whole building costs about P500,000 and it is funded by the province, Vincoy said. /PIT Intern Ryan Nuñez Wenceslao