No pork for five days – Sinag
ROSALES— Here’s bad news for pork eaters.
About 100,000 backyard hog raisers across the country have ceased operations due to unabated smuggling of imported meat, according to the chair of multi-agri alliance of 33 farmers and agri-associations across the country.
And, to protest the smuggling, Rosendo So of the Samahan ng Industriyang Agrikultura (SINAG) said his group will push through with its planned five-day pork holiday either at the end of the month or first week of April even if President Aquino signs the approved bill declaring smuggling of agricultural goods as economic sabotage.
He said the 100,000 figure of backyard hog raisers that raised an average of 15 to 20 heads that stopped operations cannot be disputed by the Department of Agriculture as this was based on data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics.
The group lambasted the government’s failure to implement the first border inspection that requires shipments to be thoroughly checked upon arrival, not the open-close inspection currently practiced.
So said they are not trying to blackmail the government with their planned pork holiday “because we do not have the capacity to do but we only want the government to see our plight and its effect to the industry”.
He warned that if pork holiday still fails to prompt government to act, his group will bring their pigs to Malacanang.
“We are doing this is because smuggling is worse now than in the previous administration,” he intoned. (Tita Roces)
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