Pampi: Food security in peril as Philippines-Brazil trade issue hangs

MANILA, Philippines — Local processors warned that the country’s food security could be in peril if the Philippines is not able to resolve its trade issue with Brazil over the importation of poultry products.

The Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (Pampi) is asking the government to settle the trade dispute with countries like Brazil, where the Philippines gets most of its raw materials for processing.

In a statement on Wednesday, Pampi said Brazil continues to hostage mechanically deboned meat (MDM) shipments to Manila as the Philippines has yet to fully lift the ban on chicken imports.

Last month, the Department of Agriculture just partially lifted the ban, allowing only MDM to enter the country. Because of this, Brazil retaliated and held on to its MDM supply.

“Without MDM from Brazil, our cost of raw materials will spike by 20 percent and we cannot pass on the rising cost to our consumers because of the Price Act signed by President Duterte recently,” Pampi said.

“We appeal to the government for an intervention so that we will be able to deliver our commitment to serve our people through a sustainable food security system,” the group said.

The Philippines imports a huge volume of MDM, the raw material for processing, from Brazil as it is cheaper compared to those sold in Europe.

“About 90 to 95 percent of raw materials of the meat processing industry are imported. Not because we want to, but because we have to,” Pampi said.

The country imports more than 800,000 metric tons of meat every year, of which 60 percent is used by meat processors to produce canned meat products, hotdogs and frozen meat items.

Brazil earlier warned the Philippines that its move to ban imports was against the tenets of the World Trade Organization.

“The Philippine government’s current imposition of a temporary ban over imports of Brazilian poultry meat did not follow the necessary and mandatory principles and phytosanitary measures, and, therefore, is in clear violation of WTO agreement,” Brazil said.

The Philippines banned poultry imports from Brazil after chicken wings in China, which were imported from the Latin American country, tested positive for the coronavirus disease.

However, the Food and Drug Administration maintained there is no evidence to support the transmission of COVID-19 from food or food ingredients.

“Generally, coronaviruses need a live human or animal host to multiply and survive. The poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces of materials will likely have a very low risk of spread from food packaging or even food products,” FDA said.

The P310-billion meat processing industry provides direct employment to some 150,000 people. In 2019, the industry produced some 900 million kilograms of processed meats.