DA pledges support for local chicken traders

Agriculture Secretary Proseso Alcala said future chicken importation should be approved by both the government and stakeholders to prevent dumping of cheap, imported chicken from competing with local poultry production. “The department will be reviewing import permits as well as MAV [minimum access volume] allocation and its holders. Chicken smuggling is also an area where we'll be implementing the harshest of penalties," Alcala told reporters in an interview Tuesday. He said his sentiments are with the local capitalists who are supposedly cashing in from poultry raising, not with poultry importers and traders. “More assistance will be provided to poultry raisers within the coming months to strengthen the industry and to “try to match the requirements with supply," he said. Alcala said the government will help the sector meet the country’s requirements “so long as they have the capacity to do so — and not by anybody else outside the sector — so that they can protect their own ranks." Official figures showed that chicken meat imports increased by 47 percent in 2009, the bulk coming from the United States (41 percent), Canada (38 percent), and Brazil (21 percent). The volume of chicken leg quarters went up by 64 percent, while that of mechanically deboned chicken, used mainly in producing hotdogs and other processed meat products, grew by 45 percent. –VVP/VS, GMANews.TV