The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) sees local production of pork meat to be flat at 925,000 metric tons (MT) this year.
That is a downward revision from its previous forecast of 975,000 MT, citing the spread of African swine fever (ASF) in provinces in Central and Western Visayas including Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Aklan.
In a report dated June 15, the USDA said “prospects of an ASF vaccine have recently improved following reports of successful local trials but in even a best-case scenario, such a vaccine would be unlikely to materially impact 2023 production.”
The USDA also lowered the country’s projected total pork consumption this year to 1.42 million MT from the previous estimates of 1.49 million as “inflation remains elevated but began slowing in the first half of the year in order to support a limited expansion of pork consumption…”
The 1.42 million MT projection is 4 percent lower than 2022’s pork consumption of 1.48 million MT.
The agency also slashed its expected total pork imports to 500,000 MT from an earlier forecast of 525,000 MT citing “unusably high carryover stocks.” The revised import projection is 10.7 percent lower than 2022’s 560,000 MT worth of chicken imports.
Meanwhile, the USDA retained its projected 1.48 million MT chicken production of the Philippines for the year, up by 2.8 percent from 1.44 million MT last year as consumers shift from pork.
Chicken consumption is also seen to grow 3.1 percent to 1.99 million MT from 1.93 million MT.
To fill the gap, imports are expected to grow by 4.4 percent to 520,000 MT from 498,000 in 2022.
