The United Broiler Raisers Association, a national umbrella of poultry raisers headquartered in Quezon City, denounced anew government claims that “deboned meat is not locally available.”
The group also dismissed misleading data that imports dropped in 2020 as Bureau of Animal Industry data showed poultry imports shot up 32% to 371%.
The slowdown in import arrivals claimed by the Department of Agriculture in its website statement “Drop in poultry imports bodes well for local industry” is misleading, a press statement sent by UBRA said.
The claimed drop in imports was only artificial as it was caused by logistics problems due to the COVID-19 lockdown that showed a drop in imports volume from January to May.
UBRA cited a newly released actual BAI data which showed cumulative imports from January to May 2020 of chicken cuts increased by 140.57%.
“A perplexing data is the importation of whole chicken at 545,406 kilos from the same period, a staggering 371.43% increase from last year,” the group explained.
“Total imported chicken products ballooned to 178.334 million kilos, an increase of 50.34% from 118.616 million kilos in the same period last year. Mechanically deboned meat (MDM) imports climbed to 108.428 million kilos, up by 45.21%,” UBRA said.
“The importation of deboned meat is a major bone of contention,” UBRA said in an open letter to DA Secretary William D. Dar dated June 15, 2020.
The group argued that deboned meat is “available locally.”
However, Dar said had said that the DA and its attached BAI only allows importation of manufacturing inputs, which is mainly deboned meat needed by meat processors.
A letter to Secretary Dar signed by UBRA president Atty. Elias Jose Inciong and UBRA Chairman Gregorio San Diego said that such chicken importation that is supposedly a “manufacturing input” has dragged down the development of the poultry processing industry in the Philippines.
Already, a major company has facilities to supply part of MDM requirements with assurance of quality, UBRA claimed.
The poultry raiser’s group wondered why DA-BAI has apparently supported imports.
“The importation agenda and mindset prevented such a development. There has been a significant increasing trend in both the total imports and the key composite items in the last five years,” the group said.