agriculture

Excess pork to be exported

Local producers have too many pigs and are looking to foreign markets to reduce supplies.

A likely destination is Venezuela, where a food shortage is likely to mean a tariff reduction.

Paul Hilton/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Adios:Panamanian pigs may be headed to foreign countries because local supply has exceeded demand. The most likely destination for them is Venezuela, which is experiencing a food shortage.1023047

Panamanian pork producers do not know what to do with a surplus of 12,000 penned pigs, for which there is no room in the local market.

Anibal Bocaranda, president of the Asociación Nacional de Porcinocultores de Panamá (Anapor), said that domestic production has exceeded expectations, leading to the surplus.

Bocaranda said contacts have already been made with officials in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador, and soon a committee will travel to Venezuela with the goal of reaching an agreement to unload the livestock in that country.

The national director of livestock with the Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario (Mida), Avelino Ureña, said that recent advances in the industry have led to an increase in pork production, and that it will be up to producers to find additional markets.

Bocaranda said that one obstacle is high tariffs, such as the 45 percent tax on imports in Costa Rica and 15 percent tariffs in other countries in the region. The Anapor president added, however, that Venezuela might be a better option because that country, which is experiencing a food shortage, might suspend tariffs on imports.

The surplus, Bocaranda said, also results from low local consumption of pork as compared to beef and chicken. According to industry figures, the per capita consumption of pork in Panama is between 18 and 19 pounds per year, whereas in other Central and South American countries, this figure is two and even three times greater. Another problem facing the sector, Bocaranda said, is that supermarket owners pay low prices to producers, then raise the sale price.

This idea was disputed by Iván Ríos, president of the Asociación de Comerciantes y Distribuidores de Víveres y Similares de Panamá (Acovipa). He said that the government is repsonsible for the surplus since it told Anapor that the industry was ready to begin exporting its product. The proper measures, however, were not yet in place.