On the evening of July 29th, an organizational meeting of
the Palau Livestock Association was held in the Conference Room of Palau
Community College. The meeting was attended by numerous pig farmers, and
several supporting agencies, including Palau Community College, the Bureau of
Agriculture (BOA), the Small Business Development Center and the US Department
of agriculture. Special guests at meeting were representative from Taiwan Embassy,
including Ambassador Tseng and Dr. Hsia.
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| Ambassador Tseng |
Dr. Hsia provided an extensive explanation of the program
surrounding the slaughterhouse at the Bureau of Agriculture site in Ngchesar. The slaughterhouse building is finished and
the processing equipment should arrive by the end of September. Four people
from Palau will travel to Taiwan in September to receive training to slaughter
pigs at the facility. An opening ceremony and ribbon cutting for the
slaughterhouse is expected in November.
The slaughterhouse will provide a level of quality control
and hygienic standards that will enable farmers to sell meat products to
restaurants and stores on Palau. While the criteria for the slaughterhouse are
still being developed, it is expected that there will be two levels of certification
for pigs that are processed at the slaughterhouse. One level of certification
will be for pigs bred under the Taiwan funded Animal Production Project at the
Nekken piggery and fed with the feed mix produced at the Ngchesar facility. A pilot
project with the BOA and the Taiwan embassy provided six pigs to six farmers to
be raised to slaughter weight. After approximately six months and grown to
approximately 200 pounds, these will be the first pigs to be processed at the
slaughterhouse. Dr. Hsia explained that the higher certification level is
intended to provide assurance to restaurant and large market buyers that there
are no trace amounts of drugs in the pigs, either from raising them or in the
feed. Also, he believes that the food from the Nekken facility will be free of
fungus that could possibly contaminate the meat. This is an effort to provide
the highest quality meat products possible. The second certification will be
for all other local pigs; meat from local pigs is expected to be sold in small
stores.
While on-island. Dr. Hsia inseminated more pigs at the
Nekken piggery in the continuing effort to increase the number of piglets
available to farmers on Palau. Three generations of pigs have been bred so far.
Once they have reached the fifth generation of breed stock, they will work with
farmers to continue to breed these pigs at farms throughout the country and
provide assistance with artificial insemination and subsidized cost of feed.
This will greatly increase the number of pigs available to be processed at the
slaughterhouse with the higher certification level. Ambassador Tseng expressed
his commitment to continued assistance to Palauan farmers and asked for
patience from farmers as the slaughterhouse gears up for processing locally
raised pigs. He believes this is an important step for increasing food security
on the island. Director Sengebau expressed his gratitude to Ambassador Tseng
for all the assistance that Taiwan has provided to Palauan farmers.
