Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Vegetable producers want sardines tested for contamination
KORONADAL CITY -- Vegetable producers in Mindanao urged Wednesday the government to test the tomato paste used by the sardines industry as it is allegedly contaminated with hazardous elements.
Dante B. Sarraga Jr., president of the Philippine Vegetable Industry Development Board, said a test commissioned by a private individual on the tomato paste used by sardine manufacturers based in Zamboanga yielded "harmful contaminants."
The "positive test" on the tomato paste sourced from China was conducted even before the melamine milk scare broke out in many countries.
Sarraga did not mention the harmful chemicals allegedly found in processed canned sardines but strongly urged the government, through the Bureau of Foods and Drugs (BFAD), to conduct a separate test to ascertain the safeness of the sardines.
Vegetable stakeholders in the Southern Philippines will gather here Monday for the 5th Mindanao Vegetable Congress, themed "Linking the Countryside to Innovations and Technology Towards Greater Challenges and Opportunities."
"There are harmful contaminants in tomato paste sourced in China. We came across it because we were wondering why China-made tomato paste is so cheap," Sarraga said in a press conference here.
He made the claims after revealing efforts by the vegetable industry for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to assist in the setting up of tomato paste plants in the cities of Zamboanga and General Santos.
At present, there is only one tomato paste plant in the country located in the Ilocos region.
The Philippines is importing 80 percent of its tomato paste from China, Sarraga said, adding that it is equivalent to 30,000 hectares of tomato plantations that could have been produced by Filipino farmers.
Tomato is among the vegetables that industry stakeholders said has great production potentials in Central Mindanao region.
Sarraga said that most of the tomatoes shipped from Mindanao to Luzon came from Northern Mindanao. He lamented that this set-up does not augur well to sardine makers.
Imagine shipping fresh tomato at P65 per box and returned to Zamboanga in paste form at a cost of P100, he said.
Rene Rafael C. Espino, national director of the Agriculture department's high value commercial crops program, did not react to the claims of contamination of tomato paste used by the sardines industry.
However, Espino said that there are eight big tomato paste makers in China and that it is cheaper to import than produce the product locally.
Domestically, it takes P29 to make a kilo of tomato paste, but the landing cost of a tomato paste from China is only P21 per kilo, he said. (BSS)
