Farmers’ group: DA creating panic on pork shortage

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA)’s recent pronouncement on a possible 10-day pork shortage creates panic and may even cause an unnecessary spike in the retail prices of meat products during the holiday season, according to farmers’ group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag).

“It was also the DA who said that there was a shortage in the rice supply, but it was actually the buffer stock of the National Food Authority. The NFA has no stocks, but there was no rice shortage,” Sinag executive director Jayson Cainglet said on Thursday, recalling that the DA had made an “irresponsible” statement that led to an increase in the retail price of rice.

“Why do you have to say there is a shortage? It is creating panic, it only justifies the high retail prices of pork,” he added.

On Oct. 10, newly designated DA spokesman Arnel de Mesa said that the government is eyeing pork importation amid a supposed 10-day local supply shortage.

Cainglet noted that the DA’s 10-day shortage projection did not include offal or internal organs used as food.

“They only included prime meats. We all know that the consumption for offals is high as it is used as extender for hotdogs, processed meats,” he added.

Data on imported meat in cold storage facilities was also not included.

“Discussions are ongoing as we called their attention for not indicating the data on imports. In fact, they amended their data and sent us an updated volume of imported meats in cold storage,” he said.

Based on Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) data, the total stocks in cold storage facilities as of Sept. 30 already reached 458,703,535 kilos.

“BAI also issued sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance totaling to 900 million kilos. Why do they need to request more importation when the arrival of imported frozen pork is ongoing? It did not stop,” Cainglet pointed out.

He added that the farmgate price of pork decreased by P20, or P160 per kilo from the previous P180 per kilo.

“The disparity between the farmgate and retail price of pork is big,” Cainglet said.

Based on the DA’s monitoring, the retail price of pork kasim ranged between P260 and P330 and pork liempo ranged between P290 and P400.