Put up of rabbit slaughterhouse in city approved

The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, approved an ordinance seeking for the establishment and providing funds for a rabbit slaughterhouse in the city.

It shall adopt the implementing rules of Republic Act (RA) 10611, otherwise known as the Food Safety Act, thus, it will be the policy of the local government to provide safe and compliant rabbit slaughterhouse standards.

The ordinance stated that the local government with its partners shall undertake projects to assist the rabbit raisers, the restaurants and the schools in support of the thriving rabbit industry in the city.

Further, the support could be provided in terms of training for rabbit raisers, dispersals, training for culinary arts and the aggressive promotion of the consumption of rabbit meat as an alternative to pork and beef.

The ordinance tasked the City Veterinary and Agriculture Office (CVAO), the City Planning and Development Office, the City Health Services Office, the representatives of the various rabbit breeder associations in the city and other departments with coverage on the various standards to strictly implement the pertinent provisions of the measure.

The approved fees for the sustainable operation of the rabbit slaughterhouse shall be collected and designated to be part of the operation of the facility where the same can accept rabbits with the proper declaration of the rabbit raiser.

Among the fees to be charged from the rabbit raisers include slaughter fee – P41, ante-mortem fee – P4, post-mortem fee – P3, permit fee – P2 or a total of P50 per head of rabbit that will be slaughtered in the said facility.

The ordinance stipulated that the budgetary requirement for the construction of the rabbit slaughterhouse was estimated to be at P5 million which can be funded by the local government or the same can be sourced out from other funds from the concerned government agencies.

On the other hand, the budgetary requirement for the operation of the slaughterhouse shall be included in the annual budget of CVAO, considering that the personnel and operations of the facility shall be placed under the said office.

Earlier, the local legislative council passed Resolution No. 110, series of 2021 authorizing the City mayor to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Cordillera office of the Department of Agriculture (DA-CAR) for joint action of livestock raising projects in the city.

As of this year, DA-CAR allocated some P1 million for the local government intended for rabbit raising which will be implemented by the CVAO.

Representatives from the Cordillera Rabbit Breeders Association ((CORBA) disclosed that the association has around 184 members where 35 members are from the city aside the fact that there are 79 breeders in the city.

Moreover, there are other cooperative and associations of rabbit breeders in the city that have existed over the past several years.

As of last year, the rabbit population in the city was estimated to be more than 9,621 heads apart from the 2 restaurants that are serving lapin menu in the city. Some restaurants have also been interested to include lapin as their regular menu before the onset of the prevailing health crisis but they eventually declined from doing so because of the effects of the pandemic. – Dexter A. See