The Department of Agriculture (DA) said it is arranging for a new meeting with local pork stakeholders to improve the compliance rate with the maximum suggested retail price (MSRP) for pork products, first implemented last March 10.
The DA set the MSRP for pork in Metro Manila wet markets at P380 per kg of liempo, and P350 per kg of kasim and pigue, apart from a maximum price of P300 per kg for “sabit ulo” or the price at which traders pass pork to retailers.
The MSRP compliance rate by monitored stalls has wallowed at 20 percent, while compliance with the logistics side has been much lower at 6 to 7 percent, DA Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa told reporters in an interview in Quezon City, on Monday.
“Based on the latest report from the DA’s AMAS (Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service), the level of compliance of more than 170 monitored stalls is 20 percent, but if you look at the compliance of sabit ulo that was supposed to be P300, the level of compliance is less than 10 percent and only at around 6 to 7 percent,” de Mesa said.
“If sabit ulo will not comply, therefore, retailers will really have a hard time to also comply with the P350-to-P380-per-kg pricing. That is where we will focus now,” he added.
At present, farm gate prices of local pork have been dwelling in the low range of P220 to 250 per kg., according to the DA, which will discuss the issue with traders who previously agreed to limit their profit margin to P70 per kg. when the DA was still crafting guidelines for the pork MSRP.
“So, there are those who are not following what was agreed upon during the meetings. But nevertheless, this pork MSRP has been effective for only a week and if we look at our experience when we started the rice MSRP, compliance was also not immediately high but there were corrections in the market,” de Mesa added..
He also reiterated that if prices of pork remain high despite meetings with the local pork stakeholders and the implementation of the MSRP, the DA may again intervene through the sale of pork meat in Kadiwa rolling stores and in collaboration with the Food Terminals Inc. to remove market layers and middlemen.
Based on the DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region (Metro Manila) on Saturday, March 15, the prevailing price of pork ham ranged from P340 to P410 per kg; pork belly from P355 to P470 per kg; frozen kasim from P230 to P290 per kg; and frozen liempo from P290 to P360.
