The Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines (ProPork) is appealing to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to maintain the ban on pork imports from Brazil to protect the local hog sector from foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).
ProPork President Edwin G. Chen said importing pork from Brazil, which has been accorded the status of “FMD-free with vaccination,” may “endanger” the local hog sector and the country’s “FMD-free without vaccination” status.
“We know that frozen meat can actually transfer diseases, such as FMD, which has already been eradicated in the Philippine hog sector,” Chen told the BusinessMirror.
The ProPork official said his group will submit an official position paper to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol on November 2.
The group issued the statement after the DA said earlier that the government may lift the ban on Brazilian meat imports this month. A team from the DA, which inspected Brazil’s meat plants in September, said their inspection yielded “favorable” results.
Manila suspended the issuance of import permits for Brazilian meat products in July after some shipments from the Latin American country tested positive
for salmonella.
Chen also said the Philippines should only import pork from the state of Santa Catarina, the lone area in Brazil that enjoys the FMD-free without vaccination status.
Ensuring shipments are only sourced from Santa Catarina may pose a challenge for the government, especially for the DA, according to the ProPork official.
“Our government has no capability to ensure that the Brazilian [exporters] will source pork only from Santa Catarina. Probably, there are no pigs in the area, that is why it has been accorded the FMD-free without vaccination status,” he said.
Following the corruption scandal that tainted the image of the Brazilian meat industry, Chen said the Philippine government should be wary of meat products from Brazil. The ProPork official also revealed that, during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the DA had imported 2,000
heads of Murad buffaloes from Brazil. Chen said more than 1
00 heads of the imported buffaloes had FMD.
“We made sure that the Murad buffaloes were quarantined at the Philippine Carabao Center in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. More than 100 heads tested positive for FMD. [Official] wanted to disperse the buffaloes, but ProPork made
sure that these were destroyed,” he added.
Government sources told the BusinessMirror that the Philippines imports beef and pork from countries that enjoy the FMD-free without vaccination status. These include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denamark, France, Germany, Spain and the United States.
However, the Philippines sources beef from FMD-free with vaccination countries, as meat products from these areas are deboned and deglanded, in accordance with the guidelines of the World Organisation for Animal Health, or OIE.
Sources also said the government allows the importation of pork from Brazil if it would be sourced from the state of Santa Catarina.
Based on the latest database of the OIE, the Philippines is among the 66 recognized FMD-free countries where vaccination is not practiced.
The OIE officially recognized the Philippines as a country free from FMD without vaccination in May 2015. The OIE also recognized the country as free of Peste des Petits Ruminants, a highly contagious disease affecting small ruminants, that same year.
The OIE database also shows that the state of Santa Catarina is the only area in Brazil that is recognized as FMD-free without vaccination since 2007.
Under the 2017 Terrestrial Animal Health Code (TAHC), imported meat and meat products of ruminants and pigs from FMD-free countries with vaccination shall be accompanied by an international veterinary certificate attesting that the entire consignment has been kept in the recognized area as FMD-free.
Also, the imported meat should have been slaughtered in an approved slaughterhouse and have been subjected to ante- and postmortem inspection for FMD with favorable results, according to the TAHC.
For imported beef or meat of cattle and water buffaloes, the OIE recommends that the meat should came from deboned carcasses from which the lymphatic nodes have been removed.