Hograisers start delivery boycott

ANGELES CITY – Hog producers in at least 10 provinces are kicking off today a three-day halt to the supply of pigs to Metro Manila slaughterhouses in protest against rampant smuggling and excess importation of pork and other agricultural products.

"We have the commitment of large cooperatives in the provinces and we expect a 50 percent reduction of pork availability in Metro Manila markets up to Saturday," said Nicanor Briones, chairman of the Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines (ASAP) and president of the Limcoma Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LMPC), the country’s biggest cooperative based in Lipa City, Batangas.

Briones downplayed earlier denials from some agricutural groups that they would not join the hog delivery boycott, saying that officers of big cooperatives of swine producers had signed a resolution expressing their support for the three-day protest move.

"It is also for the sake of consumers that we are holding the protest move. We cannot have food security if 40 percent of Filipinos who are in agriculture end up losing their source of livelihood because of smuggling and the eventual removal of tariffs on agricultural exports as imposed by the World Trade Organization," he said.

Briones said hograisers in Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Iloilo and General Santos City would not sell pigs to traders from Metro Manila up to Saturday.

He named some of the big hograising groups taking part in the protest move as the Limcoma Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Soro-Soro Ibaba Development Cooperative, Cavite Farmers Marketing Cooperative, Bulacan Livestock Integrated Cooperative, Rizal Hog Farmers Association, Cavite Livestock and Poultry Farmers Cooperative, Filipino-Cantonese Hograisers Association, Pangasinan Agricultural Ventures Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Swine Producers Association of Nueva Ecija, Bicol Swine Raisers Association and the Quezon Hograisers Association.

"The volume of pork being smuggled into the country must be significant, if we look at the volume being caught at our ports," Briones said.

He said local hograisers and poultry raisers are losing heavily due to competition from smuggled meat.

He noted that imported pork sells for about P80 per kilo, as against P110 per kilo of local pork, while a kilo of imported chicken sells for about P55 per kilo as against P80 for local chicken.

Briones said leaders of other agricultural groups have expressed their intention to join hograisers in a series of more "pig-selling holidays" in Metro Manila should the government fail to comply with their demands.

The hograisers are also demanding the following:

• Creation of anti-smuggling task forces in all ports of entry in the country;

• Further reduction of some 400 Customs bonded warehouses to ensure better monitoring of imports;

• Definite safety nets for the agricultural sector amid the pending wider implementation of trade liberalization in 2004;

• Enactment of a law that would classify smuggling as economic sabotage;

• Revamp of the Department of Agriculture, starting from the level of undersecretary; and

• Full accounting of the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, which is derived from tariffs on imported meat. "This fund is supposed to be used for the development of backyard livestock raisers, but we have not benefited from it at all," Briones said.