The government has identified ways to ensure the billions of pesos that it will spend for its live cattle-importation program would not go to waste, or worse, bring in a disease that could threaten over 21 million cloven-hoof animals in the country.
Documents obtained by the BusinessMirror showed that the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) has submitted to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol a rapid risk assessment of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) from the importation of live cattle from Brazil.
“This rapid risk assessment will consider risks of reintroduction of FMD to the Philippines that may be associated with the importation of live cattle from Brazil,” the document read.
According to the documents, FMD is identified as a potential hazard, as it is a highly contagious viral disease of cloven-hoof animals, such as cattle, carabaos, goats, sheep and pigs, which could lead to serious economic losses.
Furthermore, the documents noted that the FMD is identified as a hazard to the local livestock sector, as about 21.567 million head of cloven-hoof animals could be threatened by the virus.
The risk assessment is important, as the Philippines already imported FMD-infected cows from Brazil.
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) recognizes the Philippines as an FMD-free country not practicing vaccination, while Brazil is recognized as having FMD-free zones where vaccination is not practiced (one zone) and FMD-free zones where vaccination is practiced (four zones).
The documents noted that the Philippines has a history of live animal importation from Brazil, which resulted in the destruction of 87 head of Murrah buffaloes out of the 2,046 head that were imported from the Latin American country vaccinated against FMD.
“The Philippines, through the Philippine Carabao Center, had a history of importing Murrah buffaloes which are FMD-susceptible animals from a region in Brazil with FMD-free with vaccination status when the Philippines was then recognized as having a zone with FMD-free with vaccination status also,” the document read.
“Of the 2,046 head of imported Murrah buffaloes vaccinated against FMD from Brazil, 87 head were destroyed when found to be positive reactors to NSP FMD Elisa antibodies upon testing in the Philippines,” the document added.
However, the remaining animals were allowed to be dispersed in “limited and controlled” areas near the quarantine site and some areas in Nueva Ecija after being tested negative to FMD.
Furthermore, the remaining Murrah buffaloes were subjected to stricter quarantine measures and monitoring, and were only dispersed after five years.
Piñol earlier announced that the Department of Agriculture (DA) would only source the Girolando heifers it wanted to import from Brazil’s state of Santa Catarina, the lone area with “FMD-free without vaccination” status in the South American country.
The documents indicated that the importation of live cattle from the state of Santa Catarina would still follow the conditions set by the OIE under its Terrestrial Animal Health Code.
These conditions include the following: the animals showed no clinical sign of FMD on the day of shipment; were kept since birth or for at least the past three months in an FMD-free country or zone where vaccination is not practiced or an FMD-free compartment; and if transiting an infected zone, the animals were not exposed to any source of FMD virus during transportation to the place of shipment.
The documents also showed that the animals should be subjected to a test for FMD with negative results for antibodies and antigen.
The BAI would also prolong the quarantine period for the imported cattle in the Philippines by 15 days, lengthening the period to 45 days.
Ultimately, the government will destroy all imported cattle should there be any positive result for FMD and other diseases.
Based on the documents, the overall risk estimation for the cattle-importation program is “non-negligible”.
“Since entry, exposure and consequence assessments are considered to be high, the risk estimate for FMD is non-negligible,” it read. “Therefore, risk-management measures may be considered for implementation.”
Piñol said they are considering an island in Bohol as the center of the DA’s dairy-development program because the department owns a 3,000-hectare lot—called the Ubay stock farm—in the area, which has served as a natural confinement for imported cattle.
The agriculture chief said the 5,000 head of Girolando dairy cattle, which the DA will import from Brazil, are expected to produce 22 million liters of milk annually.
“The project is expected to provide employment for the local people and additional sources of income for the local farmers who would be engaged in the planting of forage and in the fattening of the male offsprings of the dairy cattle,” Piñol said.
“When the dairy cattle population in the Ubay stock farm has increased, a municipality-based dairy-farming program will be introduced to the different towns of the province to be owned and operated by Bohol farmers and women, thus, turning the whole island into the dairy capital of the country,” Piñol added.
Earlier the OIE has green-lighted Manila’s importation of Girolando heifers from Brasilia, provided that it would follow the guidelines from the international agency, according to Piñol.
“It must be explained that while the Girolando cattle from Brazil will go through OIE-supervised quarantine procedures, the animals are coming from a country which still vaccinates against the foot-and-mouth disease,” he said.
“As Dr. Jose Osvaldo Barcos, OIE director for the Americas, emphasized, there is no 100-percent guarantee that the animals which tested negative for FMD prior to the shipment would really be free from the disease,” he added.
The DA is also targeting to source fertilized cattle embryos from Argentina in its bid to boost the Philippine dairy sector. The government had crafted a five-year dairy and livestock development road map to prop up Philippine dairy production.
The importation of Girolando cattle from Brazil is part of the DA’s plan to ramp up local milk production to meet at least 10 percent of the annual domestic requirement by 2022, and reduce the country’s reliance on imports. The DA is allotting at least P1 billion for the live cattle-importation program.
“Our target is to bring in 500,000 heifers by the end of the term of the President. As to whether we will have the money to procure the cattle, the answer will largely depend on the performance of the first batch of heifers,” Piñol said.
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