Exposé: Government's undisclosed report on lean meat powder will hit the livestock industry

↑On the pros and cons of lifting the ban on ractopamine, Premier Chen Baoji of the Council of Agriculture needs to explain the matter clearly to the public.

On Saturday (March 3), the Executive Yuan had just convened the third meeting of the technical consultation group on the ractopamine case, emphasizing that the ractopamine-related assessment would be conducted on the basis of three major principles -- "safeguarding the health of the people," "looking after the development of the industry" and "complying with international norms" -- as well as "professional considerations" and "risk control," and claiming that it would provide "correct information organized from scientific facts" for outside reference. The words were barely out of its mouth when last night (March 4), Government Information Office Director-General Yang Yung-ming proposed the policy direction of "safe tolerance, separation of beef and pork, mandatory labeling, exclusion of offal," announcing a "conditional lifting of the ban" on beef from cattle fed feed additives containing ractopamine.

As soon as the Executive Yuan's policy announcement came out, it caused an uproar among the experts and representatives nominated by civil society groups who attended the third meeting of the technical consultation group, and also provoked dissatisfaction among domestic pig farming groups, who threatened to head north to protest at the Council of Agriculture. At a time when the food safety risks posed by ractopamine remain unclear, and when no assessment has been made of the industrial impact and administrative burden of setting a maximum residue limit for meat, the Executive Yuan went ahead and proposed its 16-character motto for the "conditional lifting of the ban" on beef from cattle fed feed additives containing ractopamine, a move that appears to run counter to its claim of "providing correct information organized from scientific facts for outside reference."

To give the public a more comprehensive perspective and more information with which to interpret the benefits and impacts of "ractopamine," NewsMarket, following its earlier pioneering report by an independent foreign journalist exposing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine had long been receiving reports of adverse reactions in pigs, cattle and turkeys to feed additives containing ractopamine, is now breaking with the one-voice situation of the first two meetings of the technical consultation group and will disclose related commissioned research and symposium records that the Council of Agriculture has not made public, showing that the Executive Yuan's policy of "safe tolerance, separation of beef and pork, mandatory labeling, exclusion of offal" is the product of a process lacking careful deliberation and adequate assessment.

Lifting the ban on lean American beef opens a whole series of Pandora's boxes

Before the report, however, we must first answer many people's question: what does lifting the ban on American beef with ractopamine residues have to do with Taiwan's pig farmers? Why should pig farmers take to the streets in protest? Simply put, lifting the ban on imports of American beef with ractopamine is like opening Pandora's box; afterward it will be very hard to ban pork with ractopamine residues, and even harder to ban the ractopamine product used as a feed additive, "Paylean," from entering the domestic pig farming market. This is because, under the WTO principle of most-favored-nation treatment, once imports of American beef with ractopamine are allowed, Canadian producers, who likewise use ractopamine in livestock farming, will inevitably demand the same treatment.

The expert meeting's background is too narrow, resulting in selective disclosure of information

The lean meat agent ractopamine is not merely a scientific issue; the political, economic and social dimensions behind it are very broad. The existing technical consultation group meetings on ractopamine have only included experts in veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, public health, pharmacology, medicine and food hygiene, a scope that is really too narrow. Experts in international trade law, industry research and the social sciences should also be brought in for discussion, so that all aspects can be covered and sufficient and varied information and viewpoints can be grasped before decisions are made.

Because the composition of the consultation group's members is too narrow in background, the authorities have selectively disclosed information, reducing the conclusions of the first two meetings to a single voice. Although the third meeting allowed civil society groups to send representatives to attend, the topics for discussion were already constrained by the agendas of the first two meetings.

According to a commissioned research report obtained by NewsMarket that the Council of Agriculture commissioned last year (ROC year 100), if the government lifts the ban on ractopamine, allowing the legal addition of ractopamine drugs to pork pig feed, and sets a minimum tolerance standard for pork, the following negative impacts will result: 1. The workload and funding required for agricultural administration and health units to carry out meat and drug inspection and enforcement "will inevitably increase several-fold or several tens of fold, because not only ractopamine but also several types of illegally used beta-agonist banned drugs must be tested"; 2. A severe impact on Taiwan's breeding pig industry, which has been cultivated over 50 years; 3. As Taiwan's pig farming industry faces the trend of soaring prices for imported feed materials, it will further lose its autonomy in pig breeding and genetic improvement, relying entirely on foreign countries.

The unreleased negative assessment research on ractopamine

This commissioned research report, with project number 100 Nong Ke-2.1.1-Mu-U1(9) and project title "Investigation Plan on the Effects and Regulations of Drugs Promoting Pig Growth and Reproduction," contained the following description in its abstract: "Improving the production performance of livestock and poultry and reducing production costs has always been a research goal in the livestock sector; in addition to breeding, nutrition and feeding management, many methods have been developed that can achieve the goal in a short time. The addition of exogenous promoters is especially common: for example, porcine somatotropin (pST), beta receptor agonists and vaccines against gonadotrophin-releasing factor (GnRF) are drugs commonly used to improve the growth performance of pork pigs; .... In addition to improving animal production performance, these drugs are also convenient tools for producers in managing pig herds.

The advantage is that higher production efficiency can be achieved at lower cost, but it also relatively disrupts the normal physiology and behavior of pigs. This may be because production performance is one of the items used to evaluate breeding value; the addition of exogenous promoters may interfere with animal breeders, causing errors in the selection of breeding stock, which damages the country's overall breeding system and also increases breeding costs."

This commissioned research report investigated the impact and assessment of beta receptor agonists on Taiwan's pig farming industry, using the feed additive ractopamine as an example. After analyzing the collected foreign literature, the research report pointed out that "no experiment has proven the effect of long-term consumption of ractopamine by pigs or cattle on the safety of their meat," but noted "the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's detailed regulations on the use of ractopamine."

"The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's regulations specifically remind that neither Paylean nor Optaflexx may be given to breeding animals, mainly because their effect is to boost the production of meat animals in a short time, which easily overestimates or interferes with the animals' production performance and related assessments, and therefore ractopamine cannot be used as a tool in breeding. Besides causing physiological changes in animals, this production method may even lead to behavioral deviations, such as unstable emotional expression and aggression (Minton)."

This commissioned research report also pointed out that if the lean meat percentage of pigs is to be increased, the traditional method of screening breeding pigs carrying lean meat genes is more effective than administering ractopamine to pigs. The wording used in the research report was "ractopamine may not necessarily produce a significant reduction in fat ratio in all pork pigs, which is a warning of a certain degree to pig producers hoping to use ractopamine; following traditional breeding selection methods is in fact the most effective way to reduce the fat ratio in pork pigs."

In addition, ractopamine's "dosage with obvious effects (> 9ppm) also significantly increases pigs' behavioral responses and heart rate when facing artificial stress or unfamiliar environments (Marchant-Forde et al., 2003), which is also a negative effect in pig feeding management, because ractopamine is usually fed to an entire group or an entire building of finishing pigs; once there is stressful driving within the pig house or strangers approach (after entering the slaughterhouse), this nervous behavior of the pig herd will affect one another, possibly causing injuries from pushing and trampling or other stress-related physiological phenomena. Perhaps when such nervous behavior is more severe, it will affect the meat quality of pigs after slaughter and will also raise pig farmers' losses."

"Although in the raising of certain genetic breeds of pork pigs, feeding ractopamine may raise part of the pig farming production efficiency, over the long term (more than thirty years) domestic pig breeding work (registration system performance honor numbers, central testing selection index, on-farm testing selection index, auction system, etc.) has already reduced pig backfat and raised lean meat percentage, so it is inferred that the degree of impact of feeding ractopamine on today's Taiwanese finishing pigs may be low."

"In addition, domestic pig farms are not as large as those in Europe and the United States and other countries; usually pork pig farms use a single feed line for the same stage or the same building, so adding ractopamine to feed for finishing pigs will, on small and medium-sized pig farms, cause two- or three-breed crossbred pork pigs and purebred pigs being kept for selection to eat it at the same time. When purebred pigs need to be selected according to their lean meat or fat-related traits, on-site managers may be unable to find suitable standards. Therefore, it is inferred that feeding ractopamine will cause stagnation or confusion in domestic pig breeding work, and these pork pigs and breeding pigs will be prone to stress behavior, causing trouble or losses in semen collection quality testing and estrus observation."

This commissioned research report also specifically pointed out that "the above studies all focus only on pig production and slaughter; domestically, the negative reactions of consumers to ractopamine residues in pork or offal must also be taken into account, because pork and pig offal are important sources of protein intake for the people of this country. Over the past decade or more, the people here have consumed on average about 40kg of pork per year, and in dietary culture pig offal also often appears in dishes. If the added amount is not controlled or the withdrawal period regulations are not strictly followed, causing the residue levels in domestic pork or offal to rise generally, the threat to the health of the people must be seriously considered."

This research report also pointed out that Taiwan's pig raising methods differ from those of advanced countries such as Europe and the United States, and the possible negative effects if ractopamine is used.

"Domestic pig farms often raise the core herd (Great Grand Parent, GGP), grandparent breeding herd (Grand Parent, GP), breeding sow herd (Parent) and commercial hogs (Commercial hog) together on the same farm; even some breeding pig farms also raise a certain number of pork pigs. In addition, most domestic pig farms mix their own feed on site, and fewer pig farms buy complete feed mixed by feed mills. Moreover, domestic pig farms have only one or two feed mixing tanks and main feed lines, so if an exogenous drug is added to pork pig feed, it is very easy for cross-contamination through the mixing tank and main lines into breeding pig feed."

"If ractopamine drugs are legally added to pork pig feed and a minimum tolerance standard for pork is set, under a government program carrying out large-scale promotion and drug inspection and enforcement (the inspection workload and funding will inevitably increase several-fold or several tens of fold, because not only ractopamine but also several types of illegally used agonist banned drugs must be tested), most pork pig feed and the pork produced from it may comply with regulations and the minimum tolerance standard, but the breeding pig herd raised together on the pig farm also has a very good chance of eating feed containing ractopamine through the mixing tank and feed delivery lines, and this will have a certain degree of impact on the growth, carcass, meat quality and reproduction records of the breeding pigs on the farm."

"In addition, recent literature has found that ractopamine has less impact (or a statistically insignificant one) on purebred pigs with genetic improvement for lean meat type. If among the breeding pig herd there are offspring of breeding pigs of varying fatness all eating this feed containing ractopamine, causing their growth rates and carcass traits to be similar, then the retained offspring of breeding pigs will still differ in genetic performance, and if the pig farm conducts mating based on such incorrect record data, this will inevitably cause confusion and delay in the genetic improvement of growth and carcass traits of breeding pigs."

"Although the domestic central testing stations can effectively prohibit the addition of exogenous drugs, the two testing stations in the north and south can test only a bit more than 2,000 purebred pig offspring each year (mostly boars, with few female pigs), far fewer than the number of replacement breeding boars and sows produced each year. If in the future ractopamine at registered breeding pig farms can also be included in the government's control and monitoring system, then more replacement breeding boars and sows can avoid eating feed containing ractopamine. But even so, only 20~30% of the breeding pigs replaced each year can have growth, carcass, meat quality and reproduction records unaffected by ractopamine feed."

"If domestically a regulation is passed allowing ractopamine drugs to be legally added to pork pig feed, it will inevitably cause a huge impact on Taiwan's breeding pig industry cultivated over the past fifty years; the number of registered breeding pig farms and the number of breeding pigs raised should become even fewer, and the demand for testing growth and carcass traits in pig breeding will gradually decrease. Therefore, central testing, on-farm testing and breeding pig registration numbers will also decline year by year, let alone the improvement of genetic improvement speed."

"Domestic follow-up pig breeding development may move toward relying wholly or mostly on imports; for Taiwan's pig farming industry entering an era of high feed material prices, in addition to continuing to face the challenge of high-cost imported feed materials, it will also simultaneously face the problems of uncertain breeding pig performance and genetic improvement relying entirely on foreign countries."

Origin labeling: how can it truly be implemented?

Besides the Council of Agriculture-commissioned research report pointing out the possible negative impacts of lifting the ban on ractopamine as a feed additive on the development of Taiwan's pig farming industry, at the "Ractopamine in All Its Aspects-II Symposium" held on May 6 last year (ROC year 100) at National Taiwan University's School of Veterinary Medicine, then-Director-General of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine of the Council of Agriculture Hsu Tien-lai once asked Chen Lu-hung, then-Deputy Director of the Food Industry Research and Development Institute, who was present: "May I ask Deputy Director Chen Lu-hung, the Department of Health has been promoting 'product country-of-origin labeling' for some time; if it is a processed product, such as a bun made from pork, how should it be labeled? Could you give an example so we can understand?"

Chen Lu-hung, who once served as director of the Food Sanitation Division of the Department of Health, replied: "Regarding the policy issue of origin labeling, I cannot answer on behalf of the government, but according to the information collected, if imported pork is made into buns in Taiwan, the bun and the pork are different items; assuming pork from the United States is made into buns in Taiwan, because the form has already changed, involving a substantial transformation of the product, it is regarded as a bun produced locally in Taiwan."

Less than a year after that symposium, former Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Director-General Hsu Tien-lai and Food Industry Research and Development Institute Deputy Director Chen Lu-hung both participated this month in the technical consultation group meetings on the ractopamine case that the Council of Agriculture has already convened three times. But judging from the meeting discussion topics and the post-meeting press release contents, neither of them spoke about or explored the limitations faced by current origin labeling regulations regarding imported meat product processing standards.

Now, the Executive Yuan's policy announcement on the lean American beef issue, "safe tolerance, separation of beef and pork, mandatory labeling, exclusion of offal," and its explanation that it is based on "correct information organized from scientific facts," make for a decision-making process that is really too hasty and cannot convince the public that after the ban on ractopamine is lifted in the future, the government will be able to safeguard food safety for the people.

In addition, although officials from both Taiwan and the United States clearly stated that the American beef issue cannot be delinked from TIFA, and even said that if Taiwan does not lift the ban on imports of American beef containing ractopamine, TIFA negotiations will make no progress, the question is: what is the content of the TIFA negotiations? The outside world is still in the dark. What concrete benefits can lifting the ban on imports of lean American beef actually obtain? And what impacts will it bring? Based on the requirement of information openness in a democratic society, the government really needs to explain things clearly and plainly to the people.

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