COA suspends ranch using banned drug

The Council of Agriculture (COA) ordered yesterday a small hog ranch in the central county of Changhua to suspend sale for two months after its pigs were tested to contain traces of a banned veterinary drug.

Opposition lawmakers called for caution in its ruling, saying the government must not use the local case to rationalize the continuing imports of U.S. pork that were previously found to have contained the prohibited drug.

Lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang and People First Party said that 99.9 percent of hog raisers would not risk the loss of business by using banned drugs.

One of them will lead a group of swine farmers to file an appeal today to ask the government not to use this case to batter domestic farmers but condone American pork suppliers.

The Department of Health (DOH) reported earlier yesterday the discovery of a small amount of ractopamine in a sample of pork provided for testing by the health bureau in Miaoli County in northern Taiwan.

Huang Kuo-ching, a section chief with the COA's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said the ractopamine-containing pork sold in a traditional market in Miaoli County came from a small ranch in Changhua County's rural Puyen township, which maintains some 800 pigs and delivers 40 to 50 pigs to Miaoli every half month.

The Miaoli County Government said that all of the ractopamine-containing pork was destroyed in accordance with DOH instructions for protecting public health.

The county authorities are poised to slap the ranch owner with a fine ranging from between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000.

The ranch will be allowed to sell its pigs only after health authorities determine that all of them are free of any banned substances.

The COA will also track down the supplier who has provided ractopamine to the hog ranch.

Ractopamine, which may affect consumers' heart and nervous systems, is legally used in some countries as a feed additive to promote the growth of lean meat in pigs, but it's banned in Taiwan.

The COA decided last October to ban all drugs used by farmers as food additives to boost the growth of lean pigs, including ractopamine, after medical cases were reported abroad concerning the effect of such drugs.

The DOH asked local health authorities to step up pork inspection on July 20 after two shipments of pork imported from the United States were detected to contain traces of ractopamine.

"Ractopamine scare" has gripped the island since two shipments, totaling some 1,000 tons, of 7,400 tons of U.S. pork imported between October 2006 and June this year, were detected last week to have contained residue of the banned drug. The contaminated pork has reportedly entered local markets and consumed by locals.

The DOH has not suspended U.S. pork imports because current regulations governing imported foodstuffs inspections state that a one-year import suspension can be issued only when three shipments of the food item are detected to contain banned substances.

Although the U.S. pork imports cannot be banned for the time being, food health agencies around the country have been told to beef up inspection efforts, and the percentage has been raised of imported pork that is subject to testing for the banned substance.