Pork consumption in Taiwan has increased by thousands of tonnes, while no shipment of US pork imports has tested positive for ractopamine, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
Executive Yuan Secretary-General Li Meng-yen (李孟諺) relayed Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) remarks at a Council of Agriculture policy briefing on the country’s pig farming industry at a news conference in Taipei.
Su was cited as saying that the government did not find ractopamine in more than 400 shipments of foreign pork imports inspected this year.
Photo: CNA
Although critics have said that US pork imports would put pricing pressure on domestic pork, consumption of domestic pork this year had risen to 62,245 tonnes as of Tuesday, a 6,000-tonne increase from the same period last year, Su told the meeting.
Consumption of imported pork has remained stable at 6 percent so far this year from the same period last year, Su said.
Taiwanese last year consumed 900,000 tonnes of pork, of which 61,000 tonnes, or less than 7 percent, was imported, while 6,497 farms slaughtered 8.18 million hogs and raised 5.51 million pigs, Su said.
Su ordered the government to allocate close to NT$1.3 billion (US$45.89 million) over four years to help to forge a slaughterhouse-to-butcher-shop cold chain in the nation’s pork industry to improve public health protections, Li said.
The Council of Agriculture’s pig farming policy would focus on increasing competitiveness, improving the quality of pork and reducing the industry’s environmental impact, he cited Su as saying.
Li detailed the government’s pig farming industrial upgrade plan, which was drafted last month.
The plan includes provisions to direct subsidies to producers, for more rigorous controls of production volume to be implemented and for mandatory enrollment in insurance schemes against the death of hogs, which would spread out risks, Li said.
Subsidies would be provided to modernize hog pens and pollution controls, which would help to create sustainable and high-quality pig farming, he said.
Slaughterhouses with refrigeration and temperature-controlled vehicles would be established, while vendors at wet markets would be incentivized to upgrade their refrigerators, he said.
The government is to push for more pork exports by changing regulations and trade terms, while it would provide subsidies to reward exporters, with the goal of a 20 percent export growth rate, Li said.
The Traceable Agricultural Product, Certified Agricultural Standards organic and premium agricultural certificates, as well as product tracing codes, would have revamped evaluation mechanisms, he said.
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