A step toward food security

SMC has always been a trailblazer in helping raise our country’s competitiveness as it continues to show us the way forward

The affordability of chicken meat over other meat sourced from animals has contributed to the increase in its demand.

According to the Philippine Poultry Broiler Industry Roadmap 2022-2040, the chicken broiler (and egg production) industry is the most progressive animal enterprise in the Philippines today.

The Roadmap also stated that in the past two decades, the volume of production doubled from around a million metric tons in 2000 to almost 2 MMT in 2020.

The volume of production was at 1.93 MMT in 2019 while the gross value of chicken production at current prices was P173.94 billion in earnings and P179.21 billion in receipts.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority in its Special Release in August 2023 on Chicken Situation Report for April to June 2023 reported the total chicken inventory reached 200.21 million birds as of June 30, 2023.

This was 2.8 percent higher than 194.71 million birds recorded in the same period last year.

Of the total chicken inventory, native/improved chicken accounted for 43.3 percent, followed by broiler chicken with 34.5 percent share, and layer chicken with 22.2 percent share.

Broiler chicken refers to chicken bred and raised specifically for meat production.

While the country produces chicken for consumption, broiler imports grew over the past years. According to the Roadmap, from 2014 to 2019, the Philippines imported more chicken meat than Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Coincidentally, as the country is celebrating National Livestock and Poultry Month this October to acknowledge the efforts of partner stakeholders in the livestock and poultry industry, San Miguel Corporation, through its subsidiary San Miguel Foods, Inc. inaugurated the Magnolia Mega Farm in the municipality of Hagonoy, Davao del Sur recently.

The mega farm is first among 11 mega farms that SMC intends to build throughout the country under the San Miguel Foods’ Mega Farm Projects.

“We proudly inaugurate our Magnolia Poultry Farm in Davao del Sur, the largest in the Philippines and the first of mega farms that we will