Hog raisers oppose pork-based aquafeed from ASF-hit countries

A group of hog raisers reiterated its appeal to prohibit the entry of processed animal proteins (PAPs) from countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) in order not to derail the sector’s recovery from the animal disease.

The issue at hand was already escalated to Malacañang, hoping the government will reimpose the temporary ban on importing the fish feed ingredient, according to National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. president Chester Warren Tan.

“We are still appealing not to push through with it (PAP importation) because we have all the threat in our country,” said Tan on the sidelines of Livestock Philippines Expo 2022.

“We want to warn them in case [they] are not aware an ASF-infected import has already entered the country since we don’t have border inspections. If they can guarantee us [this], we’ll not argue with them. But if they cannot guarantee us, that’s a problem,” he said.

“[We wrote them a letter] I think several months ago,” Tan told reporters, alarmed that imported PAPs from ASF-hit nations might enter the country soon.

Recently, the Department of Agriculture authorized the importation of PAPs from countries with confirmed cases of ASF solely for aquatic feed use. It imposed a moratorium on sourcing processed porcine or pork meal for animal feed use in 2019.

Based on the Bureau of Animal Industry’s (BAI) import risk assessment, “the risk of entry of the virus through the import of PAPs from ASF-affected countries is considered to be medium, while the risk of exposure is estimated to be low.”

“Aquaculture is one of the biggest contributors to the Philippine economy with more than 2 million registered fisherfolk nationwide, and that to sustain the local aquaculture industry, adequate supply of feed products such as processed animal proteins, used as raw material in the aquaculture feed manufacture is crucial,” the memo read.

The aquaculture sector has been pressing the agency to allow them to bring in porcine PAPs from countries infected with the viral disease to be able to sell fish products at affordable prices. INQ