The government allowed the importation of 7 million kilograms of pork covered by the minimum access volume to help temper the high prices in the market, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said Wednesday.
Piñol said in a Facebook post that President Rodrigo Duterte called his attention to the rising prices of pork in the market two weeks ago, prompting him to arrange a series of meetings with hog raisers.
Piñol said he appealed to hog raisers to control the price of live weight, so as not to further push up the price of pork.
“In the meeting, they all pledged to help. In spite of that, prices of pork continued to rise prompting me to call the technical team to assess the situation. As of 1 p.m. [Wednesday], the Department of Agriculture decided to allow the importation of 7-million kilos of pork covered by MAV to address the uncontrolled increase in the price of pork in the market,” Piñol said.
He said he approved the recommendation of the technical team in view of the “seeming insincerity of the hog raisers I talked with last week.”
“I made an appeal that the price of live weight be controlled so that I will not be unduly pressured by the consumers. It seems my appeal fell on deaf ears, hence this move to allow importation. This would mean that meat importers will be allowed to bring in 7-million kilos of pork to stabilize the price in the market. I have already informed Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea of this decision,” said Piñol.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed the retail price of lean meat ranged from P160 to as high as P230 per kilogram while the retail price of pork liempo ranged from P160 to P240 a kilo.
The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, however, said it was unfortunate that Piñol blamed the hog farmers for the high prices of pork in the market.
“He is blaming the hog raisers when in fact we already talked to him last week and showed him how the industry works. We told him that the retail price of pork is not dictated by hog raisers,” said Sinag executive director Jayson Cainglet.
Cainglet said the current farm gate price of hog was at P115 to P135 per kilogram.
“The average farm gate is actually P125 per kilogram so plus P70 [at retail price]. The ideal retail price should be P195 to P210 per kilogram. We told him to give us details on the areas where prices are high so we can check who is the supplier. That is if it’s really local, it could be imported and that is what worries us,” said Cainglet.
“The value chain of pork is different. We explained to him the value chain and we thought that he understood. It is very unfortunate that it came from DA. We think there are people that are taking advantage of the situation so they can justify the importation,” Cainglet said.
“We wanted to help him but he announced the importation already. Then again that is allowed because it is under the law. This could lead to the drop in farm gate prices which by the way do not reflect in the retail prices,” he said.