Swill feed ban floated
We strongly require that movement and trade of live animals, meat and processes products be accompanied with appropriate veterinary health certificate, shipping permit and meat inspection certificate
Although not a single case of African swine fever (ASF) has been found, the Department of Agriculture (DA) says it remains wary and continues to impose precautionary measures to avoid a possible outbreak.
Among them is the banning food scraps or swill feeds that backyard hog raisers use to feed their animals. This developed in the wake of a Bureau of Animal Industries (BAI) report noting an unusually high mortality rate in hog farms in Rizal and Bulacan province.
To date, however, the DA has yet to disclose the number of affected pigs and the cause of death. The agency is waiting for the results of tests conducted in a laboratory in Europe.
At a news briefing in Makati on Wednesday, Agriculture spokesperson Noel Reyes said leftover food heightens the risk of foot-and-mouth disease or even of the ASF.
He said Agriculture Secretary William Dar is in direct communication with members of the Crisis Management Team (CMT) discussing the proposed ban.
A similar ban was imposed by the DA in 2018 when raisers were also prohibited from using food scraps sourced from malls, restaurants, hotels and airlines to guard against the threat of an ASF outbreak.
According to the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. (NFHFI), backyard hog raisers account for 65 percent of hog production in the country. But due to high medical costs and expensive feeds, backyard raisers are compelled to use food scraps which can be easily sourced from the landfills located in the affected provinces.
High production costs have also hampered industry growth, the NFHFI said. In fact, a report from Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA) said the inventory or actual number of swine in farms in the second quarter stood at some 12.70 million heads. This translated to a 0.6 percent decrease from the previous year’s stocks
Meanwhile, Reyes assured that the BAI and DA Regional Office are currently conducting joint activities in line with the 1-7-10 protocol in monitoring the situation in Bulacan and Rizal.
“We strongly require that movement and trade of live animals, meat and processes products be accompanied with appropriate veterinary health certificate, shipping permit and meat inspection certificate,” he said.
Amid the ASF scare, the DA assured consumers that locally-processed meat products like canned goods and hotdogs are free of materials affected by ASF and that there will be no meat price hikes.
A similar ban was imposed by the DA in 2018 when raisers were also prohibited from using food scraps sourced from malls, restaurants, hotels and to guard against the threat of an ASF outbreak.