By Madelaine B. Miraflor

The Philippines has placed a temporary ban on the importation of domestic and wild pigs and their products including pork meat and semen originating from Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and China.

The ban coincidentally came at the onset of the “ber” months but Jesus Cham, President of Meat Importers and Traders Association, said that if there is going to be supply pressure on meat products towards the latter part of the year, this should not be the reason.

“We don’t import pork from any of those countries so there is no effect,” Cham said.

The law allows the Department of Agriculture (DA) to issue a general order preventing the entry of animals and their products from any country with dangerous communicable disease.

Thus, when it received reports from the World Organization for Animal Health that there were several outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF) in Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and China affecting domestic and wild pigs, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol immediately imposed the ban.

“There is a need to prevent the entry of ASF virus to protect the health of the local swine population,” Piñol said.

He also called for the immediate suspension of the processing and evaluation of the application and issuance of Sanitary Phytosanitary (SPS) import clearance to these commodities.

All of the shipments that are scheduled to arrive here will likewise be confiscated by DA Veterinary Quarantine Officers at all major ports.

To further protect the local swine population from any potential ASF contamination, Piñol also issued another order prohibiting the use of catering food waste or leftovers from international and domestic airports and seaports as swine-swill feed throughout the country.

DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), through its National Veterinary Quarantine Service Division, is also mandated to set up a quarantine inspection system relative to inter-regional and international movement of animals and animal products in order to prevent the entry of exotic diseases and the spread of endemic diseases in the country.

“The risk of introduction of potentially infectious disease pathogens such as ASF and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) through catering food waste collected from international and domestic airports and seaports that are used for swill feeding posed a grave threat to the local swine industry,” Piñol said in a separate memorandum.

“Animal disease pathogens are quite resistant to high and low temperatures in meat-based food preparations thus, swill feeding is considered to be one important route of disease introduction in the country,” he added.

The memorandum shall take effect immediately and shall remain in force until officially revoked.

Meanwhile, Cham said there may be a tight supply of meat, particularly chicken and pork, during the entire “ber” season.

“Let’s put it this way: the DA guidelines to suspend safeguard duty on poultry have not been finalized. There may not be enough time for more imports to arrive before Christmas. As for pork, DA wants MAV [Minimum Access Volume] licensees to fully utilize the import quota. So they are counting on availability to pull down prices,” Cham said in a text message.

“However, imports are only a small percentage compared to local supply.

The tail does not wag the dog but follows it. And even if the remaining 50 percent of MAV pork arrives, it is still only around 25 million kilograms or only 1/4kg per Filipino,” he added.

A few weeks ago, upon finding out that the rising prices of pork and poultry is not caused by the shortfall in supply but just a mere speculation, the DA has threatened to cancel all the existing, underutilized import licenses under the MAV scheme of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This, as Piñol found out from local producers that farm-gate prices for pork and poultry have merely gone up in the last months and that the production is fairly stable.