Smuggling is hot!

Smuggling of agricultural products is really, really hot item these days. Everybody is worried sick and food sub-sectors concerned are up in arms from commercial hog raising entrepreneurs which comprise 20 percent of national production and backyard raisers which produce 80 percent of the national total to downstream allied activities like feedmilling and marketing (product hauling, wholesaling and retailing.)

It’s because hot meat from China and Korea at dirt-cheap prices is scalding domestic production and highland vegetable production — in Benguet province especially — is being messed up in the lowlands by widespread flooding of contraband vegetables from China.

Indeed, smuggling is everybody’s business, a losing proposition for local producers and a lucrative venture for the smugglers.

The country’s hog raisers’ and Benguet vegetable farmers’ hopes for recovery remain a dream and will remain so until the menace of smuggling is finally vanquished. Contraband vegetables and pork and carabeef products are today’s "hot" items.

Fortunately, remedies are being worked out by the government with the cooperation of the private sectors.

The latest caper of smugglers is the P20 million worth of vegetables, meat and dairy products found "overstaying" at the Port of Manila. The perpetrators are probably waiting for the opportune time when nobody is looking.

Just like their previous illegal modus operandi – the pork products and pig skins (from Canada) and vegetables (from China) were declared as fruits (this time, it is pears). The contraband chicken products were declared as yogurt in the importation documents.

Acting on the worsening smuggling problem, government agencies – led by the Anti-Smuggling Task Force – swooped down recently on the Port of Manila and found and confiscated the contraband contents of 15 reefer vans out of 127 unclaimed vans up for inspection being suspected also of containing "hot" commodities. As of this writing, the remaining vans are still being inspected.

Previous to that incidence of smuggling there were several other attempts which the task force was able to prevent. There was no record, of course, of the ones that got away. On the volumes and worth of unapprehended commodities, only heaven knows while industry leaders can only speculate.

The raiding team was composed of Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr., Customs Commissioner Antonio Bernardo, Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho and Presidential Security Group Chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon. Says Bernardo of their action: "If we have to inspect and seize every suspicious shipment daily, then we will do it if that’s the only way to stop these smugglers." A week before that raid, Bernardo, Esperon and Camacho led an inspection that uncovered P10 million worth of contraband rice stocks.

Alberto R.T. Lim Jr., president of the National Federation of Hog Raisers Inc. (NFHRI), on his part, welcomes Bernardo’s resolve and wishes that he would be unflagging in this commitment and show results that can be felt soon before most everybody in the local hog industry realize that it’s too late. Lim hazards the opinion that smugglers were successful before because of their connections to sneak the meat products from China, Canada and Korea into the country and literally butcher the P80 billion swine industry.

In a recent letter to President Arroyo, the hog raiser federation said: "We appeal to your Excellency that the dominant class of smugglers and irresponsible importers be totally eradicated.

"This dominant class has succeeded in flooding our country with imported meat. Statistics show that volume of pork importations is way above the allowed number of tons. Considerable portions of this importations are choice cuts which are directly competing with local produce. Even minor cuts like livers and skins have found their way into supermarkets and wet markets."

With the new agri-leadership and the concern of President Arroyo who instructed the chief of the presidential security command to personally attend to the scourge of swine smuggling, industry leaders are optimistic that help is on the way.

True enough, the Department of Agriculture, acting on the request of the hog raisers has put in place safeguards to defend the local industry from cheap meat imports. Steps are being undertaken to regulate the entry of meat imports, plus other measures meant to avert widespread smuggling; at the same time, "safeguards" are put in place to protect the local domestic swine industry from cheaper meat imports. (To be continued)