Philippine broiler raisers to import hatching eggs to ease shortage

 

 

The Philippine United Broilers and Raisers Association (UBRA) and the Philippine Association of Broiler Integrators (PABI) have agreed to bring in 150,000 hatching eggs from Malaysia in the next couple of weeks to address a temporary shortage in chick production.

                                            

According to Gregorio San Diego of UBRA, the immediate importation of hatching eggs will ease a temporary tightness in chick production caused by the spate of recent typhoons.

 

The volume of imports was agreed upon following a consultation with members of UBRA and PABI.

 

San Diego said that chicken supply remains adequate for now with retail price at the wet markets hovering at PHP130 per kilogramme.

 

He said local chicken production is at 23 million kilogrammes which will be supplemented by a special importation of an additional five million kilogrammes for a total supply of 28 million kilogrammes of chicken by December.

 

He said the bulk of the five million kilogrammes are chicken leg quarters from the US, and is intended as a buffer stock for next year due to a possible increase in election-related demand.

 

He noted that consumer demand is still slack at present, but may pick up by December or if there is a shift in demand from pork to chicken.

 

He explained that the PHP130/kg retail price is based on a computation of a PHP90/kg to PHP92/kg farm gate price plus an additional PHP35, which would result in a retail price of around PHP127/kg to PHP130/kg.

 

San Diego disclosed that prior to typhoon Ondoy, the cost of chicken production was between PHP8 and PHP12 per head. However, a change in nutrition with the shift of feed ingredients from corn to feed wheat caused a disruption in production.

 

This was further aggravated by the spate of typhoons, resulting in almost no delivery of day-old chicks.

 

US$1 = PHP46.62 (Nov 17)