Pork producers hamming it up for MBM plants

The country’s pork producers are mulling the establishment of a meat and bonemeal (MBM) processing plant to reduce dependence on imported MBM and create a more-disease resistant brood. Bonemeal refers to crushed or ground bones used as animal feed or soil fertilizer. “We’re asking the government to render assistance in drafting a roadmap for the swine sector which is an important aspect in the creation of an MBM plant," Pork Producers Federation of the Phils. Inc. President Edwin Chen said in an interview Monday. He noted that the Philippines imports a lot of meat and bonemeal from Europe and the US but the Bureau of Animal Industry said it has no ready data on the volume of imported MBM for 2009 and 2010 although prices range between $350 (P15,320) to $400 (P17,508) per metric ton. The Federation is looking at a timeframe of 4 to 5 years to construct the first plant. “We’re still on the planning stage. We need to get the roadmap drafted and going before we implement the program that requires massive logistics like the MBM plant," said Chen. For hog feed, the Federation will formulate a poultry-based MBM and vice versa for poultry feed. “This is to prevent diseases from spreading and mutating. The practice of feeding porcine MBM to hogs or swine can be categorized as cannibalism. Take the case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) or ‘mad-cow’ disease, where cows eat their own kind via bovine MBM," Chen explained. Meat and bonemeal is a by-product of the rendering of animal carcasses and animal waste material from slaughterhouses. It is usually sold as high-protein meal additive or animal stockfeed and pet food. Meanwhile, the federation will also try to enforce a multi-site system in raising hogs. The multi-site system will have separate locations for breeding, nurseries, and grow-out stages. “We can arrange with the backyard hog-raisers what stage they would want to go into. I suggest they can produce piglets and then we, the commercial raisers, will produce the finishers," said Chen. He added that the system will be self-sustaining for designated pork zones in the three major islands of the country. It will also help keep tabs on parasites and viral infections that afflict hogs through the all-in, all-out system. “This means that, we grow the pigs all at the same time and sell them all at the same time. So there will come a time that the building will be left with no occupants. There’s no host, so the parasites will die a natural death, leaving the structure clean and fit for the next season," Chen explained. Earlier, hog raisers raised alarm over the proliferation of imported frozen and botcha or “double-dead" meat in the wet markets. Hog raisers alleged that frozen meat are being sold as fresh meat in wet markets and can be easily mistaken for botcha. – MRT/VS, GMANews.TV