The Philippine Livestock Industry: A Review of Current Status, Key Challenges, Emerging Opportunities, and Sustainable Growth Strategies in a Developing Country Context

Purpose: The livestock industry of the Philippines is a significant contributor to the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) and offers much potential for economic development, rural livelihood and national food security. The purpose of this review is to examine the current state of the industry, highlighting the main challenges and opportunities and demand for more sustainable growth, especially in the developing country context. Methodology: This systematic literature review employed a content analysis and thematic synthesis. It reviewed a diverse set of papers from peer-reviewed articles, research reviews, government documents, and industry analyses that were relevant to the specifics of the livestock industry in the Philippines. Findings: The industry's sustainability development is mainly limited by widespread challenges including disease outbreaks, restricted market outlets, environmental pollution, and massive production inefficiency. But the review in fact highlights the urgency of grasping current and emerging opportunities, such as digitalization and new technologies, to fundamentally improve productivity and sustainability. Promising models for sustainable growth that distinguish the value chain and green economy practices are also provided. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice, and Policy: This paper compiles dispersed information to provide a broad overview of the development trajectory of the Philippine livestock sector. However, in practice, it offers more concrete recommendations for farmers and industry actors, meaning it accentuates the role of digitalization and technological excellence as a driver of the rise of productivity and sustainability. On policy, it spells out explicit conditions for a conducive policy environment, such as coordinated animal health systems, pro-poor value chains, demand-led research and education, effective institutional capacities, global prize, and sound monitoring and evaluation. In the end, however, to achieve the full potential of the sector as an engine of sustainable rural development and national food security, a concerted effort of policymakers, farmers, researchers and digital firms is required.