Both the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. (NFHFI) and the Philippine Association of Meat Processing Inc. (PAMPI) are opposing a DA administrative order which is allowing food chains and hotel and restaurant businesses to import their own table-grade buffalo meat needs.

First, allowing the importation of buffalo meat from India will threaten health of the livestock sector.

"We’re just done with our battle against FMD (foot and mouth disease), and here is an order contradictory to it. The OIE (Office International des Epizooties) has not yet certified India as foot and mouth disease-free," said NFHFI chairman Gabriel Uy in an interview.

A PAMPI officer said that the DA regulation will be very hard to monitor so that buffalo meat can definitely find its way to the local wet market and thus dampen local hog price to the detriment of the hog sector.

"It will be easy for distributors to use a dummy to import the goods and flood them into the wet market," said the official.

DA may have been pressured to issue the more liberalized buffalo meat trade due to the high price of pork.

However, Uy said that pork price has already substantially gone down at farm gate from the former P100 to P115 per kilo to the present P80 per kilo.

The sustained high price must be controlled by government as traders may have been taking advantage of a situation when most goods’ prices have been going up, an industry official suggested.

"For sure, buffalo meat importation will have (a negative) impact on the local industry. We’re now even encouraging export of pork to China. That means we’re self-sufficient," Uy said.

The Philippines has been importing buffalo meat at around 40,000-50,000 metric tons (MT) yearly. However, only meat processors (PAMPI members like San Miguel Foods) are allowed to import the carabao meat or carabeef at manufacturing grade.

Retailers and distributors that supply to wet markets are prohibited from importing and selling these to the wet market since it can destroy the local hog industry.