Weekly P10 price hike for chicken pushed
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2019 16:23:18 +0000
To address falling chicken prices at the farmgate level, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol is proposing weekly price hikes to protect farmers and growers.
Following a discussion with stakeholders of the industry on Tuesday, Piñol said farmgate prices of chicken had fallen to about P38 per kilo in some areas in the country, keeping farmers from earning higher incomes, which could push them to quit raising chickens.
Piñol called on the stakeholders to agree among themselves to increase the farmgate price of chicken by at least P10 every week until such time they are no longer incurring losses.
“The stakeholders could not seem to agree on what to do but I hope they will. I left them with the appeal that once and for all they should agree among themselves to protect themselves,” he said.
“My worry is that if we weren’t able to address the problem on this, some of the small players might get out of the business and in a few months we might have a shortage of chicken,” Piñol added.
“That is the effect. Once farmers are losing money, they will quit. Once they quit, there will be shortage and prices [of chicken in the market] will increase,” he said.
Piñol said chicken shortages may occur by the second quarter if industry stakeholders fail to reach an agreement.
Chicken is covered by the government’s suggested retail price (SRP). The commodity should be sold at not more than the farmgate price plus P50. But prices at retail markets are not aligned with the SRP, he said.
Pinol said the DA and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) would look into the matter to ensure the selling prices of vendors were aligned with the SRP and protect consumers from profiteering.
Further, he said his department was currently reviewing the volume of imported chicken “because the volume might be too much for the local market to absorb and its going to hurt the local industry.”
Chicken imports have sharply increased to 50 million kilos since last year, he claimed.
To address oversupply, the DA is eyeing to export chicken and chicken eggs to Singapore after traditional supplier Malaysia announced it would stop exporting eggs to secure ample supply to meet domestic demand.
The post Weekly P10 price hike for chicken pushed appeared first on The Manila Times Online.