Anxiety as crew to travel to the US to broker a deal
PUBLISHED: 8 Apr 2025 at 03: 30
The Thai government’s plan to buy US bacon as part of trade deficit negotiations with Washington has drawn strong opposition from the Swine Raisers Association, which warns it may harm the country’s domestic livestock industry and put people’s safety at risk.
Sitthiphan Thanakiatpinyo, president of the association, just discussed the government’s proposal to transfer American-sourced animal feed corn and meat to lessen business disparity in response to US decision to impose a 36 % import tax on Thai products.
The organization supports the importation of maize, soybeans, soybean meal, maize, and other pet supply ingredients, which are in short offer in Thailand and are extremely required to keep up with the expanding cattle industry, according to Mr. Sitthiphan.
He argues that importing US bacon would undermine the local pork industry by making it impossible for Thai producers to engage, and that would eventually force them to leave the industry.
Then crop farmers may lose their jobs and there will no longer be a demand for animal feed wheat. Thailand will finally completely stop importing corn from the US, according to Mr. Sitthiphan.
A extended supply chain includes produce farmers, rice traders, pet supply producers, swine farmers, slaughterhouses, market butchers, and pork processors that are part of Thailand’s home pork production system.
According to him, importing pork will undoubtedly disrupt every step of this process, effectively putting in jeopardizing the entire pork production system, which he claimed is a pillar of the nation’s food security.
Mr. Sitthiphan cited the Philippines as an example of cautionary farming in which local farmers lost motivation to work hard, leading to pork shortages and a significant import dependency. Pork prices increased by 15 % to 30 %, which has continued to affect Filipinos today.
He added that Thailand’s pork industry is regarded as safer than that of the US because Thai law forbids the use of leanness-enhancing substances because of their potential effects on the cardiovascular and nervous systems when consumed in excessive amounts.
” I urge the Thai government’s negotiation team, which is led by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira, to abandon the idea of importing pork because it will only lead to numerous issues in the future,” Mr. Sitthiphan said.