President Marcos Jr. yesterday ordered Department of Agriculture (DA) Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban to meet with egg producers and traders to determine the cause of the high prices of chicken eggs in the past weeks amid ample supply in the market.
This developed as the DA announced Poland eyes to supply the Philippines with live commercial chickens and turkey and their corresponding hatching eggs and day-old chicks.
DA also allowed Babolna Tetra Kft. of Hungary to export day-old chicks and hatching eggs to the Philippines.
The President, who is the concurrent agriculture secretary, issued the directive to the DA during a Cabinet meeting in Malacanang.
Marcos said there is a wide gap between farm gate and retail prices of eggs which mainly benefits the traders.
“We determined that the increase in the price of eggs is not commensurate with the increase in production cost. So we will have to see how to control that because we cannot explain almost one-half of the profit margin that we are seeing. We cannot attribute it to cost,” he said in a video released by the Presidential Communications Office after the meeting.
Based on the DA’s price watch as of January 13, medium-sized eggs are sold at P9 or P9.60 each instead of the expected retail price of between P7 to P7.50 per piece. It was sold at P6.90 per piece in December 2022.
The DA had previously reconvened the Price and Volume Watch Committee and Advisory Groups for Livestock and Poultry to closely watch the prices of eggs across the country and determine if there are bottlenecks that could be addressed to bring down the prices.
DA is also coordinating with the Bureau of Animal Industry to address some challenges faced by the egg producers that affects production.
Meanwhile, the DA has issued an administrative circular (AC) putting up an accreditation system for Poland to ship live commercial chickens and turkey and their corresponding hatching eggs and day-old chicks to the Philippines which is also expected to promote fair trade practices and sound regulatory foundation for domestic and international trade.
Under AC Number 4 Series of 2023 signed by Panganiban last January 20, the agency said the government of Poland applied for a system accreditation of said products.
DA added the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) conducted an on-site verification inspection last October in representative farms to assess and evaluate the biosecurity, animal health program, animal disease diagnostic capacity, as well as husbandry practices implemented.
The agency said BAI found the government of Poland to be compliant with the requirements provided in the Terrestrial Animal Health Code of the World Organization for Animal Health and relevant Philippine Standards.
DA added BAI found no imminent risk to source live poultry and their corresponding products for export to the Philippines.
In a separate AC, the DA also renewed the authority of Babolna Tetra Kft. of Hungary to export day-old chicks and hatching eggs to the Philippines.
Under AC Number 3 Series of 2023 which was also signed by Panganiban last January 20, DA said that in 2019, BAI first conducted an ocular inspection of representative farms in Hungary to evaluate the biosecurity, animal health program, animal disease diagnostic capacity as well as husbandry practices.
Another ocular inspection was conducted in the said farm last year to comply with the DA rule that accredited countries shall be audited two years from the approval of the accreditation and every three years thereafter.
DA said it also found no imminent risk for day-old chicks and hatching eggs from Babolna Tetra Kft. in Hungary for export to the Philippines.
Based on data from BAI, the Philippines did not purchase any chicken and turkey meat from Poland and Hungary last year. With Jed Macapagal
