Demand for ham, lechon up – DA
Credit to Author: Bella Cariaso| Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0800
MANILA, Philippines — The demand for lechon and ham has increased amid preparations for the holidays, according to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
“The holiday season has started. Since the start of ’Ber season, the orders for lechon and ham have picked up. The demand has increased,” Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa said yesterday in an interview.
De Mesa assured consumers of enough supply of pork despite the impact brought by the outbreaks of African swine fever.
“We want to assure that the supply of pork, including chicken is good after the stakeholders guarantee enough stocks of livestock,” De Mesa said.
Based on monitoring of the DA, the retail price of pork shoulder ranged between P280 and P360 per kilo; pork belly, between P330 and P400 per kilo; whole chicken, between P160 and P220 per kilo; beef rump, between P410 and P490 per kilo; beef brisket, between P320 and P460 per kilo and medium-sized eggs, between P6 and P8 per piece.
On the other hand, De Mesa said that the retail price of vegetables has started to go down following the successive typhoons in the country.
“For highland vegetables, we have no problem in the supply. We have a little problem with the lowland vegetables but we are already recovering,” he said.
Tropical cyclones Kristine, Leon, Marce, Nika, Ofel and Pepito devastated the country during the last week of October to November.
“Starting last week until this week, we observed a decrease in the retail price of vegetables, so hopefully (it) will continue to go down this December,” De Mesa said.
He also assured the public of enough supply of rice during the holidays.
“Despite the expected decline in local production, imported rice is expected to reach as high as 4.5 million metric tons. Again, in terms of volume, we can expect more than 100 days of national stock inventory by the end of year which is enough to last until the next harvest and we expect the arrival of more imports,” De Mesa said.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives vowed to help bring down further the prices of basic commodities despite reports of a slight increase in inflation.
“I have already directed the committees on ways and means, food and agriculture, trade and industry, food security and social services to find out what commodities have spiked in prices borne out of either monopoly in the industry or smuggling,” Speaker Martin Romualdez said yesterday.
The House chief cited as instance the price of rice, whose tariff on imported rice has already been reduced by the President, and this has also been reflected in the world market.
“The question still remains on why the price of rice still remains high in the market,” he said.
He said that this would be the purpose of the quinta committee to determine the cause or identify those who are benefitting from the tariff reduction and lower price of rice in the world market and farmgate prices.