The Philippines has slapped a temporary import ban on poultry products from the Netherlands—the second time this year—due to confirmed outbreaks of bird flu in the European country.
Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar issued Memorandum Order (MO) 69, authorizing the temporary ban on the importation of domestic and wild birds and their products including meat, day-old chicks, eggs and semen from the Netherlands.
The ban came less than three months after the previous ban on Dutch poultry products was lifted by the government. The Department of Agriculture (DA) earlier banned the imports of poultry and poultry products from the Netherlands in January due to bird flu outbreaks.
The DA reimposed the ban after the Netherlands confirmed an outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Zeewolde, Flevoland. The Netherlands reported its outbreak to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) last October 28.
“There is a need to prevent the entry of HPAI virus to protect the health of the local poultry population,” Dar said in his order dated November 12.
With the temporary import ban, the processing, evaluation and issuance of sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance (SPS-IC) for Dutch poultry products has been suspended.
“All shipments IN TRANSIT/LOADED/ACCEPTED UNTO PORT before the official communication of this Order to the Dutch authorities shall be allowed provided the products were slaughtered/produced before October 13, 2021,” MO 69 read.
However, the MO stipulated that all other Dutch shipments containing poultry and poultry products that were accepted at the port of origin a day after the Philippine authorities informed Dutch authorities about the import ban are “advised not to sail.”
“Shipments which have not complied with the conditions set forth in Item 3 to Item 4 shall be dealt with as per DA AO 9 S. 2010 Section VII.D,” the document read.
“Importation of meat products of poultry is subject to the conditions provided in Article 10.4.18, 10.4.19 and 10.4.24 of OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code [2021],” it added.
Prior to the series of import bans slapped on the Netherlands, the European country accounts for about a fifth of the country’s annual poultry imports. The Netherlands is also one of the country’s major suppliers of mechanically deboned meat (MDM) of chicken, a key raw material of meat processors.
The reinstatement of the temporary import ban on Dutch poultry products is expected to cause supply concerns anew for the domestic meat-processing sector, especially that Christmas season nears.
The meat processing industry has been facing supply problems this year after the entirety of Europe was technically shut down due to a series of import bans slapped by the government on European countries supplying the country with chicken MDM due to bird flu outbreaks.
The supply shortage led to reduction in the volume of processed meat products in the market and ultimately resulted in price spikes across concerned products, including hotdogs.