HOG industry players have committed to increase their shipments of hogs and “pork-in-a-box” from Visayas and Mindanao to Luzon to boost supply and arrest spiking retail prices, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said on Wednesday.
The DA said the Visayas and Mindanao (VisMin) hog industry players have committed to ship about 27,000 to 30,000 live hogs from the main ports of Davao, General Santos and Cagayan de Oro until the end of the year.
This was the agreement forged between the DA and the VisMin hog raisers during a virtual meeting led by Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar and attended by agriculture undersecretaries, major hog producers and DA regional directors.
“We will elevate our partnerships with hog producers and traders, ship owners and operators, and local government officials in Visayas and Mindanao to supply Metro Manila and Luzon with hogs and frozen pork, and eventually bring down prices for the benefit of consumers,” Dar said in a statement on Wednesday.
Furthermore, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has vowed to hike its shipments of pork-in-a-box to four container vans or about 48 metric tons (MT) per week from Mindanao, the DA said. Each van contains 12 MT of frozen hog carcass, according to DA.
Dar said the “concerted effort will greatly boost the dwindling supply of pork in Luzon due to the depopulation of hog farms infected with African swine fever [ASF].”
“This is a problem of logistics—including sourcing, distribution, and marketing—which we can address without difficulty. All we ask is the full cooperation of key players in the entire hog industry value chain,” he said.
Dar said he has sought the assistance of Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade who vowed to work with shipping companies to increase the number and frequency of vessels plying the routes from CDO, GenSan, Davao and other major VisMin ports to Manila and other
Luzon ports.
Last Friday, the DA declared that it will investigate the high prices of pork in the market amid high levels of frozen pork inventory.
The DA said it is possible that there is a deliberate effort by traders to withhold the release of pork products in the market.
The DA added that as of October 21, prices of pork kasim (ham) have reached P320 per kilogram while pork belly (liempo) climbed to P360 per kilogram in most Metro Manila markets. The prices were P20 to P40 higher than their quotations two weeks ago, according to the DA.
Local hog raisers said pork prices climbed beyond P300 per kilogram in Metro Manila due to lack of supply in Luzon, as 40 percent of the sow population nationwide is gone due to ASF-related actions.
Sinag: no shortage
In the view of the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag), there is no pork shortage in the country but only a distribution problem that has not been resolved as early as January.
“We have been urging the DA to bring 30 percent of live hogs from VisMin to Luzon but they did not do it,” the group had said in a statement.
Meanwhile, meat importers are now proposing that the government reduce pork tariffs to be able to bring in cheaper supply and prevent skyrocketing of prices.
Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. (ProPork) President Edwin G. Chen said the Philippines is experiencing what China and Vietnam suffered a year after ASF outbreaks: loss of sow population leading to lack of pig supplies.
Chen explained that the government’s data of over 350,000 pigs culled by the government only captures the figure of officially reported cases but not the herd that was early harvested by raisers to avert further losses caused by ASF.
“Seeing that there are a lot of ASF outbreaks in their area, some raisers harvested their pigs early and sold them in bulk at lower prices. Once you unload all your stocks, there will not be another cycle [due to threat of ASF],” he said.
“Based on the industry’s estimates, reckoning last July, about 40 percent of the total sow population in the country is gone.
If we lose that volume of sow, then the natural consequence is that we will have a shortage,” he added.