Why carabeef imports are needed

Late last year and early this year, the hot news was "hot meat" being smuggled into the country, with the blame almost invariably being pinned on the local meat processor.

Yet, seizures of such hot meat by the authorities showed that no meat processor was ever engaged in such technical or outright smuggling of beef, chicken, pork or pork products, said Francisco Buencamino, executive director and spokesman of the 33-member Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (PAMPI) whose members comprise the largest meat processors in the country.

PAMPI, which includes all big names in the local food industry, "will not squander their image and business reputation just for one or two shipments that are hardly enough to fill in their requirements for manufacturing grade meat for a year," Buencamino said.

In fact, PAMPI members go through the long waiting process of having their import permits (veterinary quarantine certificates) approved by the Bureau of Animal Industry.

Buencamino said PAMPI, because of the sheer size of its memberships’ operations, has always been the favorite fall guy of the local hog raisers who describe themselves as small and backyard due not to an unfair trade regime but more because of farm and market inefficiencies that result in high farmgate prices of their produce.

The constant fight between PAMPI and hog raisers had reached the legislature, where at a recent hearing by the Senate committee on agriculture of a draft bill authored by Sen. Manuel Villar seeking to limit meat importation only from FMD-free countries, Sen. Ramon Magsaysay shrugged off the allegations of the hog raisers and asked them to focus instead on how they should strive for global competitiveness.

Villar’s bill, if passed will put a stop to importation of carabeef from India – the principal source of local meat processors – because it has not been certified by OIE as FMD-free.

Buencamino said if forced to source only from FMD-free countries, meat processors can only get their manufacturing grade meat from Australia at a very high premium, which in turn would result in a price escalation of 30 to 45 percent on consumer prices.

Even the Department of Agriculture, through Undersecretary Cesar Drilon for Livestock and Fisheries argued that world animal trade regulator, Paris-based Office International des Epizooties have trade protocols allowing meat trading even from FMD-risk countries provided vaccination is followed strictly.

Drilon said the US has manufacturing grade meat good only for its own requirements, Canada currently has a mad cow episode, New Zealand does not have manufacturing grade meat needed by local processors and Australia is the only country that has the volume needed by local processors.

"We can not source our carabao meat from local herd since we only have three million heads with the Philippine Carabao Center and at the volume needed by local processors, we need to slaughter 330,000 to 600,000 heads a year and at this rate we would be depleting our herd in less than five years," Drilon said, citing statistics from PCC Executive Director Dr. Libertado Cruz.

The Philippines is just beginning to shore up its cattle population, including carabao, which has been viewed as a draft or working animal. Local stocks are being improved with pure breeds from India and other sources, for genetic upgrading. And since carabaos are also being bred for milk and dairy, there is an added pressure to maintain live carabaos instead of killing them for the meat requirements of local processors, Drilon said.

Indeed the most logical solution to this supply impasse is getting manufacturing grade carabeef from herd-rich India, which, while being an FMD-risk country, has not been pinpointed as the source of FMD outbreaks since 1998, when the industry started getting its supplies from India.

As Buencamino said: "FMD is endemic and is mostly confined in backyard farms because of questionable hygienic practices of these farms."

And with only Luzon as the FMD-risk island – since the Visayas, Mindanao, Palawan and Masbate having been declared FMD-free areas by the OIE – containing this dreaded disease is more a problem of better cooperation between small hog raisers and the government veterinarians and ensuring that correct farm practices are adopted at all times.

Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr. is targeting an FMD-free Philippines by May 2004. May is when the 64 member nations of OIE meets.