The Department of Agriculture has extended the price ceiling on pork and chicken, citing its effectiveness in preventing price surges, particularly in Metro Manila.
“We will maintain it until April 8. Lifting it will undeniably result in dramatic rise in prices of pork and chicken, given that the African Swine Fever crisis is still raging and thus continues to impact on local production of hogs nationwide,”Agriculture secretary William Dar said.
Dar cited the need to augment the current shortfall, estimated at 400,000 metric tons (MT), by stocking up imports from countries free from ASF.
Importation, he said, may temper the rising inflation rate which stood at 4.7 percent in February – the highest in 26 months – as more affordable protein sources become available.
The Agriculture department thumbed down the suggestion of hog raisers to raise the price ceiling given that actual prices remain higher.
“By maintaining it (price ceiling), the government will send a strong signal to Filipino consumers who suffer from lower incomes due to the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our economy, that it does care about their welfare,” Dar said.
“Hog producers, wholesalers, and retailers are no less expected to do their share in helping the country’s economic recovery effort,” he added.
DA data showed the total hog and carcass deliveries from various regions to Metro Manila have reached 127,868 heads and 823,673 kilograms of carcass from February 8 to March 7, 2021.
Pork shipment to Metro Manila from nearby provinces in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions 1, 2, 8, and 13 have been hampered due to insufficient supply of hogs.
As of Sunday, a total of 2,625 hogs and 40,803 kilograms of carcasses from various regions were delivered to Metro Manila.
The largest number of hog deliveries came from Calabarzon Region, particularly the provinces of Batangas, Rizal and Quezon, with 2,079 hogs or 79 percent of the total deliveries, followed by Mimaropa Region with 403 hogs from Oriental Mindoro.
At the House of Representatives, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda opposed proposals to reduce the tariff on imported pork, saying it will have minimal effect on the price of the commodity and will only serve as a disincentive to production.
“We’ve run the numbers, and our findings are that, at the levels the DA is trying to propose for importation, the tariff reduction will only impact average consumer pork prices by 50 centavos per kilo. This is not worth the pain it will cause farmers, and it is certainly not worth the trouble of more inspections,” Salceda said.
“Even with the current pork tariffs of 40 percent, the imported price will be around P187 per kilo. Considering that pork has reached up to P400 per kilo in some markets, there is no logic for a tariff reduction. Even at a tariff rate of 100 percent, there would still be an incentive to import,” he added.
Salceda warned a tariff reduction at a time when global prices are already much lower than domestic prices merely “pads the profits of big businessmen.”
“Only the big supermarkets and importers will benefit from a tariff reduction. They will already make very big money at the current tariff price,” he said.
An unnecessary tariff reduction, the lawmaker said, could hurt the domestic swine industry, of which 71 percent is backyard production.
“In a crisis like this, hurting a major source of revenues for household farms is unconscionable,” Salceda said.
