The Department of Agriculture (DA) has issued a temporary ban on beef products imported from Spain.
The DA under Memorandum 21 – 2023 dated March 6 stopped the importation of live cattle, meat and meat products, bovine processed animal proteins and semen derived from cattle from the cited country.
But even with the ban, the DA gave assurance this should have no significant impact on the overall supply of beef in the country as Spain only contributes 0.54 percent of all beef imports from 2018 to 2022.
The temporary ban came in the wake of a report by Spain’s Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentacion in Madrid to the World Organization for Animal Health on January 21, 2023 of an outbreak of mad cow disease in Pontevedra, Galicia affecting domestic and meat byproducts, including bovine processed animal proteins and semen originating from Spain.
The DA said the move is also a precaution as the mad cow disease pose a risk to consumers due to their assumed link with the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
This means immediate suspension of the processing, evaluation of the application and issuance of sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance of the cited commodities from Spain.
All shipments from Spain still in transit, loaded or accepted unto port before the official communication to Spanish authorities, will be allowed provided the products were slaughtered or produced on or before December 21, 2022.
Spain supplied the Philippines 3.5 million kilos of beef or 1.89 percent of the 186.15 million kilos total beef imports in 2022.
As of end-January this year, Spain delivered 111,326 kilos of beef to the Philippines or 0.89 percent of the total 12.5 million kilos worth of beef imports.
