By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay | Philippine News Agency
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – Antique’s Provincial Veterinary (Provet) has urged local government units (LGUs) to create municipal task forces against the African swine fever (ASF) that will coordinate with their provincial counterpart.
Provet Public Health Division head Dr. Rafael Marco Ardamil said in an interview Friday (Nov. 5) the creation of the municipal task forces would ensure that Provincial Ordinance 2020-242 prohibiting the transport and sale of pork-based products from Luzon, Mindanao, and other areas in the country with ASF cases to Antique, would be implemented down to the barangay level.
“The municipal task force will conduct surveillance on the ground,” he said.
Of the province’s 18 towns, only the municipalities of Libertad, Culasi, and Sibalom have established task forces.
Those that have no task force have designated one staff member under the Municipal Agriculture Office assigned with the livestock section to do the monitoring and reporting on the display and sale of pork-based products that are prohibited in Antique.
Meanwhile, Elma Pena, president of the Sibalom Livestock and Poultry Raisers Association, said in a separate interview that this month, they have begun to receive more orders for live weight hogs from traders in Luzon.
“We are now able to ship 1,500 hogs weekly with the increasing demand due to the Christmas season,” Pena said.
She added that the buying price for the live weight has increased to P150 per kg. as compared to the previous month’s cost of P105.
“We really experienced the wors(t) (from) July to August last year when the buying price was only P75 to P80 per kg. live weight because of the COVID-19,” Pena said.
Last year, they had difficulty with their shipment to Manila due to quarantine restrictions, and traders from Luzon had to undergo the required 14-day quarantine.
She urged LGUs to closely safeguard the entry of pork products from ASF-affected areas by creating their task forces so that the hog industry could survive. (PNA) – bny
