Agriculture

DA: Ban on poultry shipments may be lifted by September

August 17, 2017 | 9:20am

DA: Ban on poultry shipments may be lifted by September

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol is confident supply will be back to normal in time for the holiday season in December. Andy Zapata, file

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture will likely shorten the ban on the shipment of poultry products from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao and may allow transport of goods by early September.

In a briefing Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said farmers may resume shipments around the second week of September after all processes have been completed.

“We will just finish the 21-day incubation period of the virus. If there will be no similar incident, then we can already clear the shipment to the other parts of the country,” Piñol said.

“If there will be no manifestation (of the virus), we will declare an end to the crisis,” he added.

Due to international protocol, however, farmers within ground zero — an area within seven kilometers of San Luis, Pampanga — will not be allowed to raise poultry for 90 days.

The local industry has been urging DA to immediately lift the ban on the shipment so as not to disrupt the supply chain.

But, Piñol assured the public anew that there will be no impending shortage of products, especially eggs, as the Christmas season nears.

“I don’t think that it will be serious because we have enough time to recover. It’s only August, it would only take about 30 days [before it becomes available]. We have time to recover,” Piñol said.

Furthermore, the department will start deploying biosecurity teams that will inspect all farms nationwide as another measure to avoid new cases of the virus.

“We will conduct an audit of all existing farms starting in Pampanga. We will check the disposal of waste, disposition of chicken dung among others. We want to improve the biosecurity inspection all over the country to prevent another outbreak,” Piñol said.

In a related development, Benguet Gov. Crescencio Pacalso said Thursday that a reduced supply of chicken dung could dent vegetable production in the province, which provides at least 85 percent of the country’s highland and tropical vegetables.

While the Benguet provincial government has stepped up preventive measures to parry the fowl flu, additional personnel on job-order basis have been hired for the surveillance and monitoring of poultry products.

Gov. Pacalso said the province is looking for alternative and supplemental sources of chicken dung other than Pampanga. Pacalso also appealed to farmers not to use chicken dung from the quarantined areas in Pampanga.

READ: Eggs, chickens from Luzon slip through shipment ban

No cockfighting for 2 weeks

Pampanga will also stop cockfighting in the whole province for the next two weeks as suggested by Piñol.

“It involves the movement of fowls from one place to another. Governor [Lilia] Pineda agreed and she relayed it to the mayors and they all accepted the proposal,” Piñol said.

Meanwhile, as the DA awaits the laboratory test result from Australia to determine the strain of the virus, Piñol is optimistic that it will yield negative.

“It will just be a confirmatory test. Based on all indication, we are almost certain that it’s going to be negative,” he said.

As of Thursday, the DA has culled 92,000 poultry heads, which includes chickens, ducks, quails and fighting cocks.

It targets to finish culling 500,000 heads by Saturday.

The government has already dispatched approximately 400 military men to help in the process.

READ: 35,000 'balut' from Pampanga intercepted in Zamboanga City port

Compensation starts next week

The Agri chief said the DA will start paying affected farmers next week the P80 per poultry head compensation as an initial P31 million will be released from its calamity fund.

“We will start as early as Tuesday and we will download the money to Region 3. We will prioritize those farms that were first depopulated. Alongside that is the loan program as well,” he said.

He added that DA will also submit the work plan for the P100-million request from the president, which will be used for the recovery of the poultry industry in Pampanga. — with a report by Artemio Dumlao