DA to raise P5B over 6 years for livestock sector

The Department of Agriculture (DA) will be raising P5 billion over a six-year period to boost efforts to help the local livestock sector develop products geared for the export market.

Outgoing Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. said in yesterday’s pre-launch of the 1st Philippine Livestock and Poultry Summit to be held on July 23 at the Philippine Carabao Center in Munoz, Nueva Ecija, that the government wants the local livestock sector to set their sights on the international market and take advantage of various opportunities in offshore markets.

Lorenzo said the export market will also address concerns over declining hog and pork prices resulting from excess production as well as competition from unabated entry of smuggled pork from various sources.

"In the next six years, the focus of the livestock sector, especially the hog, cattle and poultry subsectors, should be how to improve production, make these conform with world class standards and be cost effective if they are to be competitive in the global market," said Lorenzo.

The hog producers for instance, could tap the world’s biggest potential markets for pork. These include Japan, the world’s top importer with average annual imports of 1.15 million metric tons (MT) of pork and value-added pork products.

The other major importers are the US, Russia, European Union Mexico and Asian countries such as Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Currently, only six companies, among them Purefoods-Hormel, Foodsphere, Pacific Meat and Century Canning are involved in the exports of processed pork products such as luncheon meat, pork and beans, lechon paksiw, pork adobo, sizzling delight sisig, chili con carne, bistik tagalog and Spam.

The exports went mostly to Bahrian, US, Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Australia.

The volume being exporter however is miniscule with the highest recorded at 106 MT in 2002.

Lorenzo said the DA, through various government financial institutions such as the Quedancor, Land Bank of the Philippines and Development Bank of the Philippines, will be extending loans to livestock producers that want to upgrade their production facilities, improve their stocks and invest in the acquisition of new technology required for getting accreditation from international animal-health certifying bodies.

Except for the few hog integrators in the country that already have existing facilities to go into the export trade, the backyard or small to medium hog producers which constitute more than half of the industry production, have yet to acquire the facilities and technology to make their products at par with other producers in the region.

To lay the groundwork for exports, Lorenzo said the industry will have to come up with a comprehensive disease surveillance system and install domestic and international accreditation systems for meat establishments that intend to trade in the export market.