July 15, 2009

   
Some swine producers in Mindanao, Philippines, tapped to provide hogs for the country's first pork exports have threatened to back out, the head of the industry group in South Cotabato said.

 

This is due to a perceived slow state action on the Ebola Reston infection detected in Luzon last year that has tainted the entire industry nationwide.

 

South Cotabato Swine Producers Association president Emilio V. Escobillo, Jr. said that at least one swine producer has lost interest to take part in the pilot pork shipment to Singapore due to the delayed action of the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to declare Mindanao as Ebola Reston virus-free.

 

Singapore had been singled out as a jump-off point to other developed markets due to its exacting quality standards.

 

At least five swine producers in central and southern Mindanao had been accredited to provide hogs to the company that would ship cut pork meat to Singapore.

 

The first shipment of pork meat exports to Singapore was scheduled in December last year, but this was stopped by the Agriculture department when the virus was detected in tissue samples from hog farms in Luzon.

 

The Ebola Reston virus was discovered in the Philippines in 1989 among crab-eating monkeys exported to Hazleton Laboratories in Reston, Virginia.

 

Early this year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta reported that an Ebola Reston outbreak occurred only in one hog farm in the municipality of Pandi in Bulacan. The government subsequently culled some 6,500 hogs in that farm.

 

To date, the government has yet to lift its voluntary export ban, pending the arrival of test kits from the US CDC.