Hog raisers are heeding the call of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to lower their farm-gate prices of live hogs from P200 per kilogram to P180 per kilogram, or even lower, in order to bring down retail prices of pork below P300 per kilogram.
Both the Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. (ProPork) and the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. (NFHFI) confirmed to the BusinessMirror that their members have started to lower their farm-gate prices to the level of P180 per kilogram to P185 per kilogram.
The action was made following a call by the DA’s Consumer Affairs Office, headed by Undersecretary Ernesto Gonzales, to local hog producers to lower their farm-gate prices to make pork more available to consumers.
Gonzales recently met with local pork producers, including officials from ProPork and NFHFI, to discuss the matter following a series of price spikes on pork products, such as liempo and kasim, in wet markets due to lack of supply in Luzon.
With the reduction in the farm-gate prices of live hogs, retail pork prices are expected to be within the DA’s suggested retail price level of P260 per kilogram for pork kasim/pigue and P290 per kilogram for pork belly/liempo.
“We already did lower the price average from a high of P200 per kilogram, weeks or months back, down to P180 per kg to P185 per kg as of this time. The purpose is to lower the wet market price from P300 per kg-P330 per kg to P260 per kg-P290 per kg,” NFHFI President Chester Warren Y. Tan told the BusinessMirror via SMS.
ProPork President Edwin G. Chen also told the BusinessMirror that pork prices in wet markets should not reach P300 per kilogram anymore, especially in Metro Manila, following the reduction in the farm-gate prices of live hogs.
Chen said his members have started lowering their farm-gate prices as a sign of support to the DA’s initiative.
“We welcome the cooperation with the DA. We are now calling on our pork producers to lower their prices. Some of our members are already at the level of P185 per kilogram since last week,” he said.
Chen said they are hoping to be able to maintain that farm-gate price level so that price spikes at the retail level would not happen again. He added that the DA should send teams in wet markets to monitor if pork retail prices reflected the downward movement at the farm-gate level.
Latest price monitoring report by the DA showed that the prevailing pork belly prices as of November 25 in Metro Manila wet markets was at P320 per kilogram while pork ham averaged P300 per kilogram.
Pork prices in Metro Manila wet markets climbed beyond P300 per kilogram last month due to lack of supply in Luzon as 40 percent of the sow population nationwide is gone due to African swine fever (ASF)-related actions. (Related story here: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/10/26/as-pork-prices-rise-da-probes-groups-weigh-in/)
The country’s hog output from January to September fell by 2.5 percent to 1.118 million metric tons from 1.147 MMT recorded in the same period of last year, latest Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data showed.