April 28, 2017

Philippines to import 7M kg of pork to curb rising prices

Uncontrolled increase in the price of pork in the market has led concerned Philippine authorities to authorize the importation of as much as 7 million kilogrammes of the commodity.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said that hopefully bringing in more imported pork would stabilise the price, which has spiralled up due to what he said was unfulfilled promise by producers.

He claimed that hog raisers had not delivered on their pledge to "control the price of live weight so as not to further push up the price of pork".

According to a report by news.abs-cbn.com, the agriculture chief, before approving the additional pork importation, had appealed to farmers to regulate prices but that his appeal had "fallen on deaf ears."

"The effort to protect the farmers and fishermen has to take into consideration the interests of the Filipino consumers," he was quoted as explaining.