DA to study higher tariff on imported offal

The Department of Agriculture will study how to raise the 5 percent tariff on imported pork offal after Filipino hog raisers complained that the price of the commodity is now cheaper than local pork. However, the department said it will not do so without holding dialogues with stakeholders. "Increasing tariffs on pork offal cannot be done arbitrarily. It has to undergo a process," Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Livestock Davinio Catbagan told reporters in an interview after a meeting with hog raisers and poultry growers in Quezon City this weekend. “What we assured [hog raisers] is that the DA will consider the matter," Catbagan added. Once a decision has been reached, the DA will recommend a higher rate to the Tariff and Related Matters or TRM, a committee of the policy-setting National Economic and Development Authority. Pork offal tariff, except liver, was lowered to 5 percent from 7 percent after then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order 84 on March 15, 2002. Members of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. or NFHFI, headed by its president Albert Lim, told the Agriculture Department imported pig’s lips, cheeks, head, and even liver are now selling at P170-P180 per kilo, while domestic pork is selling between P190-P210 a kilo in wet markets. As of Nov. 18, shipments of pork offal under the terms of the minimum access volume totaled 48.45 million kilos, according to the Bureau of Animal Industry. Total shipments of the commodity reached 29 million kilos for the whole of 2009, with the US and Canada as the Philippines’ traditional sources of imported pork offal. — VS/JE, GMANews.TV