Philippine pork consumption cut by half – DA exec

MANILA, Philippines — A ranking official of the Department of Agriculture (DA) yesterday confirmed a drop in the demand for pork in the market as the Philippine Statistics Authority pegged the total consumption for the second quarter to 403,000 metric tons.

In a radio interview, Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesman Kristine Evangelista said that traders complained that the volume of pork being procured by vendors from them was slashed by half.

“There is a low demand for pork. Vendors who used to buy at least two ‘sabit ulo’ from the traders, only get one sabit ulo. With that, we need to verify the data as based on the data from the PSA, the demand for the second quarter is at 403,000 metric tons, that is based on per capita consumption,” Evangelista said.

In a text message to The STAR, Philippine Pork Producers Federation president Nonon Tambago attributed the drop in the demand for pork to the low purchasing power of consumers.

“Based on observations, pork demand was affected because of low purchasing power of low income bracket consumers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Tambago said.

Evangelista added despite the reduction in the demand for pork, there is fear of possible shortage in the supply of pork amid the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) in many areas in the country.

“At present, there is fear that there will be a shortage in the supply of pork, but we at the consumer affairs department are still vetting the data as we do not only rely on the locally produced (pork). We also have inventory in the cold storage facilities of imported, or frozen pork,” Evangelista added.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary for operations Arnel de Mesa has said that the country needs to resort to more importation of pork to address the shortage in the supply amid the outbreak of ASF in many areas in the country, particularly in Visayas.

Evangelista said that the DA is trying to determine the actual stocks of frozen imported pork products.

“What we are trying to do now is engage our inspectorate to help the National Meat Inspection Service who is in charge of the data on cold storage. However, what they have is the data from accredited cold storage. So with that, our position at the consumer affairs is we cannot come up with supply situation without knowing the real picture, so what we are trying to see now is how to get the data from non-accredited cold storage facilities to make sure we have the right data,” Evangelista said.

Farmers’ group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura president Rosendo So has criticized plans to import more frozen pork products, noting that at present there are at least 75 million kilos of frozen pork still in the cold storage facilities.

Evangelista said that she plans to invite importers during the scheduled monthly price and volume watch meeting with the stakeholders.

“We will invite the importers to see the whole picture for our supply situation because it will serve also as guidance should they be aggressive in producing, should they slow down, same with our importers. We don’t flood our markets,” she said.