Hog raisers in Negros Occidental will continue selling live pigs in other areas in the Visayas and Luzon after the neighboring Cebu province extended the pork ban covering Negros Island for another 15 days or until April 20 to curb African swine fever (ASF) infection.

Provincial administrator Rayfrando Diaz II said yesterday that they respect Cebu’s pork ban and see no problem with it.

“There’s no problem with that. We have no complaints about our hog industry. They have a market, they’re happy. They’re selling at a higher price to buyers in Manila,” he told reporters.

Negros Occidental, which has a P6-billion swine industry, is listed as a dark green zone or ASF-free by the Department of Agriculture.

When the ban started on March 6, live pigs sold by raisers in Negros Occidental to buyers in Leyte could no longer pass through the ports in Cebu, prompting the sellers to ship out to Luzon instead, along with other areas in the Visayas.

On March 7, Negros Occidental included Cebu, with Bantayan and Camotes islands, in its own pork ban, which already covers Luzon, Mindanao, Eastern Visayas, Panay and Guimaras islands, which all have reported cases of ASF between 2019 and 2022.

Data from the Provincial Veterinary Office showed that since the Cebu pork ban started, 4,031 heads of pigs have already been shipped out by the province to Negros Oriental, Iloilo and Capiz as well as Bulacan, Rizal and Quezon in Luzon, and the cities of Caloocan and Malabon.

“Even if Cebu extended the ban, our raisers still have outlets. Those not shipped out are being processed into pork byproducts,” Dr. Placeda Lemana, acting provincial veterinarian, said in a radio interview yesterday.

Lemana earlier said that since Negros Occidental has also banned bringing in pork byproducts from Cebu, backyard raisers here have to increase production of processed pork items such as “chorizo and tocino” to meet the local demand. (PNA)