The National Federation of Hog Farmers, Inc. (NFHFI), have repeatedly raised an appeal for government intervention amidst deluge of pork imports and impact on the peso depreciation on production cost felt by industry.
The NFHFI has expressed concern that the peso-dollar exchange breaching P58-$1 as the cost of hog production will go up again as to discourage swine farmers from continuing their business for fear that “the harvest will be low.”
Those in the Swine Industry said that “the country has 89 million kilos as on September 2022 of imported pork in cold storage with more imports still coming in . . .it is very difficult to compete with imported products and we admit that the price of local fresh pork is a bit higher compared to imported because we have a premium price due to freshness.” Also, despite the imported pork the market remains high at an average of P350 per kilo. At this price, the farm gate price should not drop below P210.”
Accordingly, the Filipino hog raisers are experiencing losses at P175-P185 per kilo – just the cost to produce, the price gap from to market prices is large.
The BAI (Bureau of Animal Industry), data showed the country imported 8512.84 million kilos of meat and meat products from January to August 2022, higher than the 795.59 million kilos imported last year.
MY COMMENT:
The United States Department of Agriculture forecasts that “pork imports are expected to reach 400,000 metric tons or roughly 400,000 million kilos this year driven by the extended reduced tariffs on pork import under EQ 171. Possibly so!
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