The country’s swine population as of January 1 rose by 1.42 percent to 12.709 million heads, from last year’s 12.604 million, due to the increase in the number of sows and growers, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In its annual report, the PSA said hog population in backyard farms, which accounted for 64.28 percent of the total inventory, slightly grew to 8.17 million heads from 8.09 million recorded on January 1, 2018.
Also, the swine population of commercial farms went up to 4.54 million heads from the 2018 level of 4.51 million, the PSA added.
“The growth in swine inventory was brought by the increases in the number of sow, grower and other ages,” the PSA said in the report published recently.
“These three age classifications had a combined share of 66.85 percent to the total swine inventory.”
The number of sows during the period expanded by 1.29 percent to 1.761 million heads from 1.739 million recorded on January 1, 2018, PSA data showed.
Figures from the agency also indicated that the population of growers and other hogs (piglets, weanlings, boars) grew by 1.10 percent and 3.62 percent, respectively.
Grower population reached 3.735 million heads, up from 3.695 million, while the number of other pigs rose to 2.998 million heads, from 2.893 million.
“Among the regions, Central Luzon recorded the highest in terms of inventory. This was followed by Calabarzon and Western Visayas,” the PSA said.
However, the hog population in Central Luzon declined by 2.74 percent to 2.054 million heads from the previous year’s 2.112 million.
Manila rolled out biosecurity measures to protect the P200-billion domestic hog industry from the dreaded African swine fever (ASF) which crippled China’s hog sector. The hog disease is also threatening hog farms in European countries.
According to the World Organisation for Animal Health or the OIE, ASF is a severe viral disease affecting domestic and wild pigs and can be spread by live or dead pigs and pork products.
The OIE said transmission can also occur via contaminated feed and fomites (nonliving objects) such as shoes, clothes, vehicles, knives and equipment due to the high environmental resistance of the ASF virus.
Because of this, Manila has disallowed Vietnam, Mongolia, Belgium, China, Germany, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Moldova, South Africa, Zambia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and Japan from exporting pork products to the Philippines.