The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) announced on January 8, 2021 that the Philippines is already free of the last remaining A(H5N6) strain of the avian influenza. The OIE declaration came nearly four years after bird flu first struck poultry farms in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija. The H5 outbreaks happened nearly two decades after the contagious disease first unleashed its fury in Asia and caused poultry raisers in the region to incur millions of dollars in losses.
When the government confirmed that the poultry disease had indeed struck farms in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija in August 2017, consumers avoided eating chicken meat for fear of contracting bird flu. That was bad news for raisers who incurred huge losses. The farm-gate price of broiler nosedived to P15 per kilogram, which was lower than the production cost of raisers. To prevent the spread of the disease, the government imposed a ban on the transport of chicken—a move that affected both broiler raisers and egg producers.
While the poultry disease was eventually contained and demand for chicken meat recovered, raisers struggled to regain their footing because of the uncertainty in the supply situation, according to the United Broiler Raisers Association (See, “PHL seen to suffer glut in chicken meat,” in the BusinessMirror, April 29, 2019). The group lamented that the lack of a data system that would have guided the investment decisions of new entrants have led to the glut in chicken meat in the early part of 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic, which placed many areas in the country under lockdown, heightened the uncertainty for local broiler raisers.
The lockdown and mobility restrictions halted economic activity and resulted in the shutdown of a number of establishments, including restaurants. This dampened the demand for chicken meat, particularly among those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The spike in the prices of pork products last year caused by the spread of African swine fever (ASF) did not help poultry raisers even as consumers shifted to cheaper protein sources like chicken meat (See, “Broiler raisers brace for farm-gate price plunge,” in the BusinessMirror, December 27, 2021).
A new bird flu outbreak would bring the poultry subsector to its knees and could again make it difficult for the government to attain its targets for the entire agriculture sector. The bird flu outbreak in 2017 and the outbreak of ASF in 2019 have already slowed farm growth. The fatal hog disease alone was mainly responsible for the anemic performance of the Philippine agriculture sector in January to November last year (See, “January-September farm output sinks to 11-year low,” in the BusinessMirror, November 8, 2021).
The government should do everything possible to prevent another bird flu outbreak. Policy-makers should listen to local broiler raisers, who brought to their attention the alleged entry of Chinese poultry products into the Philippines (See, “Broiler raisers demand investigation of reported China poultry importation,” in the BusinessMirror, December 29, 2021). All the measures earlier put in place by concerned agencies to prevent another bird flu outbreak will mean nothing if infected meat products from other countries would enter the local supply chain. It is also possible that smuggling chicken products into the country can play a role in the spread of the highly contagious bird flu.