This is the first year that restrictions due to the pandemic were lifted.  Economic activities all over the country are almost back to normal before the pandemic hit.  However, did they redound to the agriculture sector, particularly our food animal industry?  How was it translated into the production and consumption of meats in Davao City?

The annual targets posted before the start of the year reported an accomplishment of more than 100% to as high as 144% turn-over of food animals inspected and passed in our legitimate slaughterhouses.  The former accounted for carabeef with 2,889 heads (546,715kg) being slaughtered, while the latter was for chevon at 977 heads (18,672kg).  Poultry registered 136% with 46,254,854 birds (54,965,252.75kg); cattle at 128% with 4,916 heads (797,179kg); and hogs at 109% with 190,353 heads (14,393,178kg).

Here are the numbers in the tables:

While all the livestock and the poultry industry may be considered gainers vis-á-vis the declared targets, the same cannot be said about the same industries the previous year.  The overall number of livestock being slaughtered was down by about 5% or a total of 199,135 heads (15,755,744kg) compared to last year’s 208,948 heads (16,064,765kg).  Although poultry for the first time registered a downtrend of about 5% in the second semester of the year, it remained positive with an increase of more than 10% from last year’s 41,794,323 birds (48,330,426.14kg).

Consistent with good hygienic slaughtering practices, meat inspection’s condemned primal parts of meats were up by more than 13% or a total of 76,625kg compared to the previous year’s 67,736kg.  The majority of this was contributed by condemned primal parts of poultry and hogs, at 36,221kg and 31,144kg, respectively.

Not with standing the closure of two locally registered slaughterhouses in Calinan and Toril, this city, monitoring of meat establishments increased to more than 7% in the number of establishments from last year’s 194 to this year’s 208.  The post-abattoir control and monitoring team operations confiscated about 1,557kg of hot meats.  This was also up by more than 7% from the previous year’s 1,444kg of meat confiscations.  Seized meats were disposed of accordingly following the issuance of appropriate documents.  Blotters of incidents were lodged in police stations; and notably, repeat offenders were issued with show cause orders and or, summonses.