SRPs on agri products seen to boost raisers in NegOcc

BACOLOD. Negros Occidental Provincial Veterinarian Renante Decena. (File photo)
BACOLOD. Negros Occidental Provincial Veterinarian Renante Decena. (File photo)

THE impending measure of the Department of Agriculture (DA) setting suggested retail prices (SRPs) among agriculture products like chicken and fish is seen to benefit raisers in Negros Occidental.

Provincial Veterinarian Renante Decena said the move has positive effect because the liveweight price of most livestock and poultry animals is always very low compared to that of the meat price.

Decena said that for broiler, for instance, the farmgate price for live is P70 while dressed chicken is P155 per kilogram.

“The liveweight price of pig is P95 while the pork costs P220 per kilogram which, to me, is disadvantageous to the raisers and producers,” he added.

The DA is reported to start implementing SRPs for agricultural products next week amid reports that prices of chicken and fish remained high.

In fact, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the regional inflation rate for these products along with other food items in Western Visayas has increased to 2.2 percent in January 2020 from 1.2 percent in December 2019.

The agriculture department said the high prices of beef and chicken can be attributed to the African Swine Fever (ASF), which has been affecting some swine farms in Luzon and Mindanao.

In Negros Occidental, the Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO)’s livestock and poultry monitoring focuses on the price and supply in every local government units (LGUs) or districts.

For live animals, the monitoring is through auction markets while that for meat is though public markets province-wide.

Decena said putting SRPs on agricultural products is advantageous to local backyard raisers because commercial raisers have integrators that give value chain to their products.

Thus, the PVO he said is pushing for value-adding among hog raisers like producing and selling through meat shop as well as meat processing.

“They can compete if they go to marketing,” the provincial veterinarian said, stressing that the SRPs will give backyard raisers good avenue to compete with commercial ones.

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