DA asked to exclude seaweed from early harvest program

The local seaweed industry is asking the Department of Agriculture (DA) to exclude raw seaweed in the list of 175 products that will be included in the proposed Early Harvest Program between the Philippines and China.

Seaweed Industry Association of the Philippines (SIAP) president and chief executive officer of the country’s top carrageenan processing firm Shemberg Marketing Corp. Benson U. Dakay, said dried raw and unprocessed eucheuma seaweed should be listed as a sensitive product.

"We insist that dried raw and unprocessed seaweed should not be included in the Early Harvest Program. We need to keep our seaweed for processing here," Dakay said.

The DA had said it would expand its list to 175 tariff lines in the Early Harvest Program, a trading protocol that calls for the speedy reduction in tariff rates on agricultural and industrial products traded between China and member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

SIAP said the local seaweed sector needs protection and, instead of including seaweed in the program, the DA should implement measures to either slow down or impose added cost to the export trade of domestically-produced dried eucheuma seaweed to China.

Raw dried eucheuma seaweed, either of cottoni or espinosum species, is the top raw material for Philippine natural grade (PNG) or semi and refined carrageenan.

Carrageenan is a thickening agent used in food processing and other non-food items like pharmaceutical products.

Currently, there are 11 Filipino and four foreign-owned carrageenan refining plants in the country and they supply PNG and refined carrageenan to the world market.

Dakay noted that China’s huge demand for Philippine seaweed resulted in a shortage of dried raw seaweed among the Philippine-based carrageenan processors. He said that a bulk of this commodity goes to China where there are at some 150 small and medium carrageenan processing plants.

These Chinese carrageenan processors started buying raw seaweed in Mindanao in 2002 at high prices of P50 a kilo which was P20 higher than average selling prices of just P30 a kilo.

Since local seaweed farmers prefer to sell to Chinese traders, supply has become scarce and this has forced carrageenan processors in Cebu to run their plants at just half of their production capacity.

China’s annual purchase of about 50,000 MT of seaweed at $800 per MT is worth $40 million.

"We could be earning more dollars if we give more value-added to seaweed by processing it into into carrageenan, which fetches a price of $6,000 per ton in the international market," said Dakay.