The local market currently has an egg problem and a chicken problem. Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda believes he knows which caused which.
Salceda claims that there is a connection between the recent egg price hikes and smuggling of frozen chicken meat.
The smuggling of frozen meat, he said, is causing domestic farms to reduce total poultry populations, resulting in egg supply levels “not enough to undercut abuses in the trading sector".
“The egg problem is partly an offspring of the chicken problem. Traders abusing prices appears to be the leading cause, but I can’t discount the fact that the decline in population of chickens is also to blame for this," said Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
“It’s still mostly a trading problem, given that farmgate is still relatively low, but you need an abundance of supply to undercut the efforts of cartels to control prices," he noted.
Earlier this month, the Philippine Egg Board President Irwan Ambal said there was a 20 percent drop in the population of chicken layers in Luzon since January 2022 because of the avian flu outbreak.
Salceda predicts that continued smuggling and undervaluation of chicken imports will cause poultry farms to downsize or close down, threatening the egg supply.
“There is definitely a connection between ensuring that imported chicken meat tariffs are imposed and keeping our domestic egg sector viable. We can import frozen chicken meat, but eggs are much harder to import, so we need a good domestic supply base,” he explained.
“We don’t have the option of resorting to imported eggs if domestic egg prices shoot up. So, we really need to tamp down the abuses in the trading sector, and to ensure that we have enough egg supply,” he said.
Salceda said that the government could consider feed subsidies from tariff revenues from imported corn to support egg production. The Department of Agriculture (DA) should also be more aggressive in its layer distribution programs, he said.