The government should give local producers more support instead of adopting protectionist measures, such as limiting imports, to avert oversupply, according to the Meat Importers and Traders Association (Mita).
Mita President Jesus C. Cham told the BusinessMirror that the government should stay out of commercial issues related to the country’s meat industry as competition is good for consumers.
“The [Department of Agriculture or DA] should adopt a supportive policy than adopt a protectionist stance. There should be free competition,” Cham said in an interview on Tuesday.
“The government should set up supportive programs for local producers so they can be efficient and productive. They have to move way from adopting a protectionist stance,” he added.
Cham said support programs to local livestock and poultry producers could include tax breaks, and lowering the cost of power and raw materials, such as animal feeds.
The Mita official said the increase in meat imports could indicate that some consumers are purchasing low-cost items as they could not afford locally produced meat.
These low-cost items include processed meat products that make use of imported mechanically deboned meat (MDM) as raw material.
“The majority of our imports are for low-cost items that are consumed by lower economic classes. It just tells us that the lower economic classes cannot afford to buy local meat,” Cham said.
He added that 20 percent of meat products consumed by Filipinos are imported.
Cham issued the statement after Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol announced that the DA would “rationalize” the country’s meat industry, which may include limiting imports to ensure that supply will not exceed demand, as a glut could harm local hog and poultry raisers.
The DA’s rationalization program includes the conduct of a study on what will determine the local market’s absorptive capacity in relation to total meat supply, he added.
The rationalization program was agreed upon by the government and stakeholders after farm-gate prices of chicken and pork exhibited an erratic trend in recent months.
Piñol said the program will determine how much meat will be produced in certain periods in relation to market demand and imported. “If we do not do this, everyone will be hurt.”
“We will have to make sure that there is a corresponding withdrawal from the cold storage and make sure that the volume of imports would not go beyond what the market could absorb at any given time,” he added.
Citing National Meat Inspection Service data, Piñol said there are about 27.805 million kilograms of chicken currently stored in cold storages and 34.33 million kilograms of pork, which is good for about three months.
The rationalization of the meat industry could take place after Holy Week, he said, as the DA engages a professional research group to undertake the study on the meat supply and demand situation.
Piñol said he will meet with meat importers and even processors next week to discuss the rationalization program and get their recommendations on the matter.
“[The rationalization program] will be a stakeholder-based decision. Nobody will be disadvantaged here; everybody will be involved in the decision-making,” he said.
2 comments
Dear Mr Pinol, is this is really the perfect moment to undertake a programme of rationalisation. Is it correct to assume that conducting actual on-farm validations will entail farm visits? If so, just when the industry needs to avoid taking any steps which would increase the risk of the spread of ASF, producers will have an unspecified number of boots traipsing from farm to farm. Perhaps the DA could listen to experts within the OIE who are warning that Asian farmers are considered to be unprepared to deal with the challenges represented by ASF?
If the concern for pork producers is real, why is the emphasis on meat prices when these prices are stable (although seasonal)? The real culprit here is the feeds companies. The DA should be asking why feeds prices are increasing at such a high rate when the price of soybeans collapsed a year ago. Why hasn’t the huge saving been passed on to farmers?