Hog raisers protest pork smuggling
TAYUG — A big group of hog raisers from Pangasinan has called on President Gloria Arroyo to revive the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Task Force and finally stop the rampant smuggling of pork from China (and Hong Kong) to save the country’s P120 billion hog industry from total collapse.
The call was made by members of the Pangasinan Hog Raisers Cooperative (PHRC) headed by Dr. Rodolfo Custodio of Tayug, who are alarmed by the increasing rate of smuggling of pork particularly from China even as he warned that these are not free from Food and Mouth Disease (FMD) virus which might spread in local hog farms and might cause an all-out epidemic in the country again
To date, China is not an FMD-free country.
Custodio, also former vice president of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Associations of the Philippines (NFHFAP), said the revival of the task force, originally composed of members of the government and private sectors, is necessary to ensure better surveillance on all imported food.
To date, he said, the current anti-smuggling task force is composed of only Customs personnel.
He lamented that even the PNP anti-smuggling task force can only enforce its mandate outside the Customs area and therefore its members cannot see what is happening inside customs area.
Saying the illegal importation of pork is killing the hog industry and deprives the backyard hog farmers of their income, Custodio appealed to President Arroyo to act swiftly since the illegal pork is sold at much lower prices than the local pork, at P60 per kilo dressed weight, which is just the prevailing farm gate price of hogs from the backyard.
He said the price of pork from newly slaughtered hogs in the wet market is P120 to P130 per kilo.
The flooding of the market with smuggled pork not only prevented farm gate price of hogs from increasing even during the holidays but meat processors who used to buy hogs from local raisers, have began canceling their orders.
Custodio said the FMD-free areas in the Philippines today are Visayas and Mindanao and Region 1 which includes the province of Pangasinan. – LM
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