The Department of Agriculture (DA) said it is currently drafting an administrative order (AO) that would put in place a more stringent process for accrediting traders and retailers in the livestock and poultry sectors.
The DA said the AO aims to ensure regulatory compliance and prevent the manipulation of pork and chicken prices.
According to Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar, the agency is already in the “process of strengthening the traceability systems” in the livestock and poultry trade, including meat and processed products, by expanding existing accreditation and licensing rules being implemented by its attached agencies.
“This will be done through a more robust, and inter-connected registration and accreditation process from local government units [LGUs], to the concerned national agencies such as the DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry [BAI] and the National Meat Inspection Service [NMIS],” Dar said in a statement on Wednesday.
Currently, the DA said the BAI issues a handler’s license to operate to livestock traders only while the NMIS accredits and registers only meat transport vehicles.
It added that the BAI is currently looking into the potential role of LGUs in the licensing while the NMIS is studying how its existing system could be strengthened and expanded “to further impact the supply chain.”
The expansion and strengthening of the accreditation in the livestock and poultry trade would allow the government to monitor and scrutinize traders and middlemen in the supply chain, Dar said.
“The draft DA administrative order governing trader registration is currently being reviewed by the BAI to effect the needed changes to ensure that the system will bring about transparency and subsequently benefit the consuming public,” he said.
“This will address the information gap in the supply chain, which is often being exploited by unscrupulous traders and wholesalers to manipulate both supply and prices of the commodities.”
Dar said the incomplete records of middlemen and traders have become a “perennial problem” in the livestock sector, making it difficult for government agencies to impose strict regulation of the movement of farm animals, meat and byproducts, and address supply fluctuation and price manipulation.
“We recognize the need to identify the legitimate traders in order to establish a feasible traceability system and pinpoint exactly at a certain level of the supply chain where the manipulation occurred,” he added.
The DA said the trader registration initiative will also complement the ongoing registration process for swine and poultry growers under the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture.
“The DA chief agreed to the suggestions made by the Philippine Competition Commission [PCC] during the recent joint hearings of the committees on agriculture and food, and trade and industry, of the House of Representatives, where the antitrust body cited the need for a trader database and identification of participants at each level of the supply chain,” it added.
During the said hearing, PCC Competition Enforcement Office Director Orlando P. Polinar noted that the DA should “provide a traceability database of the commodities, as it is important to know where the supply comes from and where it ends up.”
The DA added that Polinar told the agency that it is incumbent upon them to provide the PCC with more specific information to detect cartels and other anti-competitive conducts in the hog and poultry sectors.
“Clamping down [on] both ends of the supply chain would help the DA narrow down and pinpoint the unscrupulous suppliers, traders or retailers of pork products,” Dar said.