March 9, 2012

 

Taiwan's pig farmers dispute US beef plan

 

 

Thousands of Taiwanese pig farmers protested Thursday (Mar 7) against the government's decision to conditionally lift an import ban of US beef with traces of ractopamine.

 

Braving the spring rains in Taipei, as many as 8,000 pig farmers from all over Taiwan gathered outside the legislature to appeal to its members to prevent meat products containing ractopamine residues from entering Taiwan.

 

They are afraid that after the government allows the import of such US beef products, it will do likewise with pork products, even though the United States is not a major pork exporter.

 

The protesters then marched to the Council of Agriculture, which they pelted with rotten eggs and pig feces. They also clashed with police after pushing down a barbed wire barrier protecting the compound.

 

The organizer, the Swine Association, said it does not believe the administration can deliver on its promise not to import such pork products from the United States and suspects an ''under-the-table'' deal between Washington and President Ma Ying-jeou.

 

''Today's protest is not the first and it will not be the last,'' the association's director general Yang Guan-chang warned.

 

Thursday's protest followed the government's Monday announcement that it would conditionally lift the ban on US beef containing traces of ractopamine, which Washington insists is safe.

 

Ma, who promised American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt early last month that his new Cabinet would take a ''new approach'' to the issue, has said the government would relax the ban under four principles -- to separate the permits for beef and pork products, to maintain the ban on imports of beef offal, to require mandatory labelling for beef products and to establish a safe level of ractopamine residues in beef.

 

The Health Department is planning to set the maximum permissible levels within three months. They will then be enshrined in the law.

 

Despite the reassurances, the decision has not been well received.

 

Besides livestock farmers, civic groups have also staged protests. Even the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT), chaired by Ma, is split over the issue.

 

In 2010, the Ma administration's decision to partially lift a longstanding ban on US beef imports cost the job of former National Security Council secretary general Su Chi, who led the negotiations on the deal.

 

Bowing to public pressure, the legislature controlled by the KMT later amended the food safety law to ban certain beef products from the United States.

 

The beef issue has been central to the reopening of talks between Taiwan and the United States under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, which Washington in early 2011 decided against resuming.

 

Washington insists Taiwan's ban was not supported by science. Over the past decade, it says, millions of people have eaten billions of kilograms of US beef and pork containing ractopamine residues with no reports of illness or any other effect linked to the additive.