US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI3566

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003566 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT PASS AIT/WASHINGTON 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/RSP/TC 
 
USDOC FOR 6200/ITA/TD 
 
FROM AIT KAOHSIUNG BRANCH OFFICE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV, ECON, TW, ESTH, Trade 
SUBJECT: Diseased Pork Items Sold to Local Markets in 
Southern Taiwan 
 
REF: Taipei 2997 
 
1.  Summary.  Inspectors of Chiayi's Ministry of Justice 
Investigation Bureau (MJIB) recently raided an illegal 
abattoir in Chiayi County in southern Taiwan and seized over 
10,000 kg of diseased pork items.  The two brothers who ran 
the abattoir were arrested.  The arrested suspects confessed 
that they had been conducting illegal operations for over 
two years.  They bought diseased and dead pigs from the 
area's hog raisers, cut the pigs into pieces, and sold the 
portions to food processors and wholesalers in the Chiayi 
and Yunlin areas in southern Taiwan.  The two brothers were 
charged for violating Taiwan's animal husbandry law and 
waste cleaning law.  End Summary. 
 
2.  Chiayi MJIB agents, who received a tip about the illegal 
abattoir, visited the site and seized over 10,000 kg of 
diseased pork items on August 18, 2005.  MJIB agents 
arrested two suspects who were running the unlicensed 
abattoir, which was located in a small and isolated village. 
The suspects confessed that they took over the abattoir from 
their father two years ago.  They usually procured inferior 
pigs from local hog raisers, eliminated pig heads, skins, 
and organs, and then cut the remaining parts into pieces, 
and sold the meat to food processors.  MJIB agents found 
that the purchasers usually deeply fried the pork pieces, 
cooked the meat with Chinese herbs, or made the pieces into 
pork meat balls, which were then sold to venders at 
traditional open markets in Southern Taiwan's Yunlin County, 
Chiayi City, and Chiayi County. 
 
3.  MJIB agents also raided a food processing factory in 
Yunlin and discovered several thousand kilograms of unsafe 
pork which had already been made into ready-to-consume 
dishes for sale.  The investigation into this case is on 
going and no arrests have been made to date. 
 
4.  Hung Shih-chao, Deputy Director of the MJIB Chiayi 
office estimates that the raided abattoir has handled 
approximately 300,000 kg of diseased hog meat in the past 
two years.  Hung noted that local hog raisers usually work 
with local hog raising associations to dispose of dead pigs. 
Secretary General Huang Kai-fang of the Chiayi County Hog 
 
SIPDIS 
Raising Association said that the Council of Agriculture 
(COA) has assigned four plants operating in Yunlin County 
and Tainan County to assist in properly disposing of the 
diseased pigs.  The Chiayi County Hog Raising Association 
has signed contracts with two out of four plants in Yunlin 
to provide assistance for its 240 members.  Each member can 
use the association's services free of charge, but the 
members each pay the association NT$500/month (USD15). 
According to Huang, the two plants handle approximately 110 
tons of dead pigs each month.  They usually transform the 
dead pigs into fertilizers and animal feeds. 
 
5.  According to Huang, Taiwan's pig farms currently are 
concentrated in the south: Pingtung County, Kaohsiung 
County, Yunlin County, and in the Chiayi area.  The pig 
farms are currently raising around 6 million pigs total. 
There are around 300 registered pig farms and about 100 
smaller, unregistered farms in the Chiayi area.  There are 
currently about 400,000 pigs being raised in the Chiayi 
area.  Because of financial limits on efforts to enforce 
regulations, some unregistered pig farms disregard COA's 
guidelines on how to dispose of dead pigs, and instead sell 
their sick and dead pigs to unlicensed abattoirs.  Each sick 
or dead pig sells for between NT$500 (USD15) and NT$1000 
(USD30). 
 
6.  Huang noted that currently there are fewer pigs being 
raised in Taiwan than in previous years.  The eruption of 
the foot-mouth-disease (FMD) caused a ban on exporting 
Taiwan's pigs in 1998.  Even though Taiwan's pigs are 
vaccinated against the disease now, the ban is still in 
place.  Huang said that the local pigs have been growing 
well since the introduction of the vaccine and he hopes that 
the ban will be lifted soon in order to bring prosperity to 
the local pig industry. 
 
7.  Comment.  The present incident, along with the dioxin 
contamination of fish and fowl in Southern Taiwan (reftel) 
indicate that the local food supply is not entirely safe. 
Moreover, converting diseased animals into livestock feed 
can be a dangerous practice and does not fully eliminate the 
possibility of disease from sick pigs entering the human 
food supply.  End Comment. 
 
Thiele 
 
Paal