Trade contradicts DA’s ban on Brazilian poultry exports

The Department of Trade and Industry asked the Department of Agriculture to lift the ban on mechanically deboned meat from Brazil in anticipation of possible price hikes and shortage of canned meat products in the country.

“We support the position of meat processors. There is no scientific basis that MDM from Brazil are infected by the COVID-19 virus,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said Monday.

The DTI said with only less than a month inventory of the raw material, a disruption in the supply of basic canned meat products with manufacturers would eventually lead to higher retail prices.

The import ban might threaten food security, as locally manufactured processed meat holds a bigger share of the food category that most Filipino families buy, according to the department.

Brazil is the source of cheaper MDM used by local meat processors. MDM is the main ingredient used in the production of processed meats, like luncheon meat, hotdogs and sausages.

“It is important that to sustain the supply chain to avoid the impact on prices. But be assured that we will not automatically give in to processors. We still have to determine the cost impact” Lopez said.

The Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. asked the DA to reconsider the ban on poultry imports, including mechanically deboned meat, from Brazil.

PAMPI president Felix Tiukinhoy Jr., in a letter to the DA, asked for a reconsideration of the department’s decision to include MDM among banned poultry products from Brazil.

PAMPI was referring to Memorandum Order No. 39 issued by the department on Aug. 14 which imposed a temporary ban on the importation of poultry meat originating from Brazil, following reports that SARS-COV 2—the causative agent of Covid-19—was detected in a surface sampling conducted in chicken meat imported from Brazil to China.

PAMPI described the blanket ban as both questionable and speculative.

“As far as we know, the Duterte administration does not issue policies or regulations that have no basis in law,” PAMPI said in the letter.

“The memo which imposes a blanket ban on poultry products from Brazil as a ‘precautionary measure’ supposedly under Section 10 of RA 10611—Food Safety Act of 2013—cannot be supported in law and science. Hence, it is deemed invalid and unimplementable,” PAMPI said.

Tiukinhoy said, however, that the order omitted or ignored the qualifying conditions required to impose such precautionary measure.

“We do not know the reason for the omission, or whether it was deliberate or not, but usually deliberate omissions are intended to mislead or deceive,” he said.

The group noted that four months ago at the height of the pandemic, the DA itself accredited eight poultry plants from Brazil which were said to have been inspected and audited by a DA inspection mission and “found to comply with the Philippine quarantine and meat inspection systems procedures.”