NO worries about putting pork dishes on the table for the coming Christmas parties as hog raisers in Northern Luzon assured there is enough supply despite the damages on animal farms caused by flooding in the past two months.

The assurance was made by hog raisers led by Rosendo So, founding chairman of the Pangasinan-based Abono partylist, in a dialogue last week with Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcalain Manila.

“There is no problem about the supply of meat as there is even an over-supply of the commodity,” So told last week’s “Media in Action” of the Pangasinan Press Club in Dagupan.

So, however, pointed out that hog raisers are facing tough times owing to the price of live weight of hogs pegged at P82 per kilo, the lowest in the country for the last five years, while the retail price of pork is increasing.

So suspects that some groups, including those in the business of slaughtering, are manipulating the price of pork in the markets.

At the same time, the price of corn, the chief component of animal feeds, remains high at P16 per kilo.

Most of the corn supply this year, So explained, are now in the hands of traders who bought at P12 per kilo from farmers and now sell to hog raisers at P16 per kilo.

NABCOR HELP

Hog raisers asked the Department of Agriculture (DA) to order its National Agribusiness Corporation (NABCOR) to buy corn stock from farmer-producers and sell these directly to hog raisers to eliminate middlemen.

The group also requested the DA for a drastic reduction in the quota importation of meat and limit it to meat processors who produce canned goods.

Imported meat are flooding wet markets in Metro Manila and the provinces, selling at a cost lower than meat sourced out from the local slaughterhouses.

So also warned that these imported meat are the source of the so-called double-dead meat or  “bocha” in the markets.

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