Agri group urges gov’t to act on retail food price hikes

MANILA, Philippines—The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) on Thursday called on the National Price Coordinating Council to immediately act on the continuing high retail prices of pork and chicken products despite the significant reduction at the farmgate price for live hogs and chicken.

The latest Farmgate Price Watch released by SINAG Thursday indicates a significant drop of as much as P 25/kilo in the farmgate price of hogs and chicken in the last few weeks.

Since October last year, SINAG has been releasing its Farmgate Price Watch, which lists down the price of agricultural products sold by farmers to guide government and the public on the actual price changes in basic food commodities.

“This is not normal. Farmgate prices of chicken and hogs have dropped by P20-P23 per kilo at the farmgate, and yet retail prices of these commodities have even increased by P5-P10, according to SINAG chair Rosendo So.

So explained that while farmgate prices are typically lower than the retail price consumers pay since these exclude costs of transport, handling, storage, marketing and profit margins, a price difference of almost P100 is too much.

“At the current farmgate price of live hogs at P105-P115/kilo, retail prices of pork should only be about P170-P175/kilo and for chicken at P68-P73/kilo at the farmgate, retail prices should only be around P110/kilo,” added So.

SINAG is also taking exception to media statements attributed to meat importers that retail prices of meat will increase by P10/kilo due to port congestion.

“Meat imports are mainly for meat processing and are not intended to be sold at our wet markets, so there is no direct link between port congestion and any increase in the price of fresh meat,” continued So.

According to So, global quarantine regulations do not allow imported frozen meat to be sold at public market as frozen meat’s bacterial growth once taken out of freezers is very fast, posing hazard to public health safety.

SINAG also contends that farmgate prices of palay have also dropped by P2/kilo in the last two weeks. This is expected to decrease further in the next two weeks when farmers start to harvest their palay. There is no justifiable reason for any increase in the retail price of rice in the coming weeks as well, So said.

“There is no justifiable reason for any increase on the retail prices of basic food commodities being produced by our farmers since there is enough domestic supply and farmgate prices have even decreased the same over the last three weeks,” he added.