Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto added his voice to the protests by broiler raisers against plans by an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to jack up importation while advising local farmers to cap production.
The DA has “boasted” in its State of the Food Report on May 21 that chicken supply will reach a minimum of 160 days, and in a best-case scenario, 314 days. In an average scenario, the nation has a guaranteed 220-day supply.
“All of the three projections point to a surplus. If such is the case, why encourage imports? If the chicken sufficiency forecast ranges from 136 percent up to 183 percent, what is the sense in importing?” asked, Recto, former chief of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
He also demanded to know why an agency, referring to the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), “whose sole mandate is to boost food production advise Filipino chicken raisers to scale down their output to give market space for dressed chicken coming from abroad?”
Recto was referring to the furor stirred by a top BAI official who asked local producers to limit their output of chicken, to give space to imports in the market. This has triggered an uproar led by the United Broiler Raisers Association (Ubra), and demands for heads to roll. Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co of Ako Bicol urged Agriculture Secretary William Dar on Friday to fire the BAI chief.
“If you are the coach of the national poultry and production is so good amid a crisis, why would you order them to resort to point-shaving?” Recto asked aloud over the weekend, by way of illustrating the sheer folly of the BAI official’s strategy.
“At a time when we have to ramp up agricultural production in order to put affordable food on the table of Filipinos who have lost jobs, why this counterintuitive suggestion to limit production of the country’s main protein source?”
Noting how a nation whipped by the Covid-19 pandemic had suddenly realized the key role of farmers as food supply chains got disrupted by lockdowns, Recto described the farm sector as “the economy’s savior and safety net, and a job generator amidst massive layoffs. The only way for the food industry to absorb the unemployed is for it to increase, and not decrease, its yield.”