African swine fever again causing rise in pork prices: group

MANILA – The African swine fever is again contributing to an uptick in pork prices, the leader of a group of pork producers said Wednesday.

“Talagang marami ang nasalanta ng African swine fever at patuloy na nananalasa ang African swine fever,” Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines chair Nicanor Briones told TeleRadyo.

(African swine fever really continues to affect many.)

Inflation in November slowed to a 4-month low of 4.2 percent, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. Meat inflation also eased to 10.7 percent nationwide in November, from 11.9 percent in October.

• Inflation eases to 4.2 percent in November

But Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Chua noted that the uptick in pork prices in November “shows that we need to further ease administrative requirements for the unloading and distribution of stocks to encourage more importation and help bring back pork prices to their pre-African Swine Fever level.”

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Chua on pork inflation: “Pork prices continuously went down month-on-month from July to early-October. This means that our policy to temporarily import pork has been effective."

— Warren de Guzman (@wddeguzman) December 7, 2021

Briones however said the Department of Agriculture was mismanaging the ASF problem, as the agency culled herds suspected of being infected but has yet to compensate the hog-raisers.

“Nangakong babayaran pero wala namang nababayaran,” he said.

(They promised to pay, but they have yet to pay.)

He said that because of this problem, some pork producers have left the business for good, leading to a shortage in supply.

Briones said that pork prices will continue to rise if government won’t address supply issues soon.

“Pag hindi pa rin sila umaksyon ngayon, kitang-kita na nangyayari, next year lalo na magkakaproblema ang supply ng baboy, lalong mamahal ang bilihin.”

(If they don't act now, it's clear that next year there will be a problem in pork supply, prices will further rise.)

Briones said the government should instead test pigs for ASF instead of simply culling all those who have come in contact with ASF-infected hogs.

--TeleRadyo, 8 December 2021