Agriculture group seeks Senate help vs African swine fever

MANILA, Philippines — The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) is seeking the Senate’s intervention on the dreaded African swine fever after it claimed that efforts from the Department of Agriculture remain inadequate.

In a letter sent to Sen. Cynthia Villar, Senate Committee on Agriculture chair, and Sen. Grace Poe, Senate Committee on Public Services chair, SINAG called on the lawmakers to urgently conduct a public hearing on ASF and the continued decrease in farm gate prices.

This after the ASF has crossed the ASEAN region, prompting the Philippines to further tighten its security by banning pork imports from neighboring Vietnam in efforts to protect the P200-billion local hog industry.

“The ASF outbreak has already reached Vietnam, making the country more susceptible to the ASF pandemic,” SINAG chair Rosendo So said.

“And yet the quarantine and border control measures at our airports and seaports, and other contingency preparations supposedly being carried out by the DA remain inadequate,” he said.

Earlier, SINAG urged the DA to ensure that travellers coming from Vietnam and other affected ASF countries undergo 100 percent checking in airports.

“The DA may be unaware of the devastating impact to the agriculture sector once the ASF spreads to the country. Or perhaps, that is the intention in order to justify more pork importation,” said So.

Apart from ASF, the industry group is also urging lawmakers to look into the concerns of backyard farmers over the progressive decrease of farmgate price for hogs in the last six months.

“Imported pork are flooding the local market, some are being brazenly sold in wet markets. At no moment in our country’s history have we been importing this much pork,” said So.

Last year, the Philippines imported 392 million kilograms of pork and 311 million kilos of chicken, up 29 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

A pork import ban is still in effect for 14 countries namely Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Moldova, South Africa, Zambia, Belgium, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, China and Japan.

Currently, there is a mandatory inspection, in coordination with other concerned agencies, of all vessels docking in Philippine ports with meat supplies and fishing boats returning from the West Philippine Sea because of reports of bartering of sea products with imported meat.

A close coordination by the DA-Bureau of Animal Industry with the Bureau of Customs at all international air and sea ports for the conduct of rigid inspection for the checked in and hand-carried luggages of all incoming passengers from ASF-affected countries is also implemented.

Authorities are likewise confiscating and destroying all pork products coming from ASF-affected countries within 24 hours after interception.