To mitigate ASF spread: ProPork calls on DA-BAI to consider Cebu protocol

CEBU, Philippines — The Pork Producers Federation of the Phils., Inc. (ProPork) has called on the national leadership of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Animal Industry (DA-BAI) to seriously look into what the Cebu Provincial government is doing now to mitigate the impact of African Swine Fever (ASF) to the industry or else the Philippines will lose the P260 billion swine business.

In a statement released Monday, March 27, 2023, ProPork president Rolando E. Tambago said the country has already lost half (at least 5 million heads) of its swine population due to ASF, however, this was not purely because of actual infections but because of the implemented protocols.

"The BAI existing protocol of culling even healthy pigs within a 500-meter radius, which caused panicking among farmers contributed to this loss of the hog inventory," Tambago said.

He added that the industry believes that the method of culling is counterproductive, against food security, and causes the disease to spread even more as farmers who fear total loss will be encouraged to sell out their hogs, even smuggle the sick ones.

"They've been doing this protocol for more than three years, yet the disease continues to spread,” Tambago stressed.

If this protocol, which involves indiscriminate culling of healthy pigs continues, Tambago warned of a possible massive supply shortage of pork causing spikes in retail prices within two to three months from now.

"We laud the move of Gov. Gwen Garcia of Cebu to seek an alternative approach to avoid seeing the industry shrinking more,” he added.

Based on the declaration of DA-7 Regional Executive Director Angel C. Enriquez, Central Visayas is now the only remaining biggest pig producing region that is left and this move by the Cebu provincial government gives hope for the industry.

The protocol adopted by Cebu places emphasis on culling only the sick hogs and saving healthy ones. Massive testing for swine fever (ASF & CSF) is now being initiated all throughout the province down to the "purok" level employing more than 10,000 workers. Healthy hogs will be subjected to multi-level veterinary guidelines before slaughter.

This action of the Cebu Province takes a lot of courage, strong leadership, and faith that we can fight this disease and at the same time protect the remaining inventory.

Should BAI still continue to implement their protocol without seriously considering and evaluating Cebu's move, Tambago said they can't help but think that this is intentionally done to make way for more and more importation.

"In 2022, the country imported 710.3 million kilograms of pork at a reduced tariff. That's almost half of the country's annual demand. If we fail to protect the remaining half of our local industry, there is a high possibility that we will be fully reliant on imported pork and consumers will eventually suffer due to lack of food security,” he explained.