The maximum suggested retail price (MSRP) of pork may be enforced as early as next month, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said during a market visit in Quezon City yesterday.
Laurel did not specify the MSRP level, but stressed his department sought to ensure it obtained well collated data to avoid negative effects on the sector.
“We [have been] studying this since last week, and we already asked DA personnel to move. They are scheduled to show the initial findings today, but I have initial reports showing that the problem is on the retail side,” Laurel said.
“However, I talked to sellers here on the Commonwealth Market,” he said, referring to a local consumers market in Quezon City. “They are firm that the problem is not from their side but from agents, middlemen, farmgate prices and slaughterhouses. So, it is really important to be careful [with whatever decision we will come up with,]” Laurel added.
The DA said the final decision on the pork MSRP will be dependent on their “level of comfort” for the data and information that they can gather.
Earlier, the DA said the MSRP was necessary to address an excessive gap between farm-gate and retail prices as the current retail price of pork at P400 per kg or higher is “unreasonable.”
The MSRP is also expected to curb profiteering, especially since the current farmgate price of hogs stands at P240 to P250 per kg, the DA said.
Based on DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region on Monday, the prevailing price of pork ham ranged from P350 to P420 per kg; pork belly from P380 to P480 per kg; frozen kasim from P230 to P290 per kg; frozen liempo from P290 to P350.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that hog production in the fourth quarter of 2024 went down by 7.3 percent to 447.21 metric tons (MT) from 482.32 MT.
Meanwhile, data from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed that pork comprised bulk of meat imported by the Philippines from January to November 2024 at 671.56 million kg or 50.4 percent of the total for the period.
Pork import for the period was also 21.9 percent higher, at 550.54 million kilos, than that in the same period of 2023.
