Last September 05, 2005 a special meeting was called by the new Secretary of Agriculture, the Honorable Domingo Panganiban for the hog farming community.

Speculations ran around about the first meeting to be called by the Secretary among hog raisers, processors and importers. Text messages spread like wild fire suggesting that government was about to reduce tariffs on pork to allow the importations. Shortfall in production was apparently triggering the lobby by pork users.

The Federation was represented by the Vice Chairman, Mr. Renato R. Eleria and Corporate Secretary Francis Wong during the meeting. Present were representatives from the different hog farming industry associations which included a very large contingent from the Batangas Province specifically the LIMCOMA group headed by Mr. Nick Briones and Ms. Rufina Salas. Other personalities included Mr. Manuel La’O of Rizal Hog Farmers Association, Ms. Mayette Ramos and Ms. Mildred Ramos of Datacon, former DA Under Secretary Ernesto Ordonez, Mr. Freddy Ong, Ms. Angela Galang and sister Gladys, and others filled the meeting room to the brim.

The wildfire text notice of the meeting reached the meat processors and meat importers. True enough, Mr. Jess Cham of the Meat Importers and Traders Association (MITA) and Mr. Francisco Buencamino of the

Philippine Association of Meat Processors, Inc. (PAMPI) were also present.

The Department of Agriculture’s Doy Salacup called the meeting to order and began by a statement that clarified that he is still Assistant Secretary and concurrently OIC for the Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries Operations and not Under Secretary as rumors have it.

He then introduced the DA officers present namely, Dr. Dave Catbagan, the new Director of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and in passing mentioned that the National Meat Inspection Service is now headed by Dr. Minda Manantan. He also introduced Mr. Rolando Promentilla, Chief of the BAI Marketing Development Division, and staff officers Ms. Manolette Gaerlan and Mr. Elmer Esplana. Others were Dr. Marcos Quintos of LiveCor and Ms. Nenette Tiamson of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) and Mr. Pedro Ocampo, Executive Director of the Livestock Development Council (LDC) and Under Secretary Sigfredo Serrano of the Policy Research Group of the DA.

Ms. Manolette Gaerlan then began and presented a graph showing the supply patterns of hogs in the market and highlighted the downtrend.

Mr. Manuel La’O pointed out some trivial errors which he felt gave a wrong pattern of the supply for the past several years and months.

Ms. Gaerlan contested the observations of Mr. La’O and suggested that the BAI will be more than willing to provide Mr. La’O of detailed information pertaining to the charts presented.

Mr. Rene Eleria explained however that the patterns were simply a manifestation of the dynamics of the hog farming industry and that the real situation is that presently prices are on the down trend.

Director Catbagan however summed up the worries and pointed out that the patterns simply show a downtrend in volumes which prompted them to call for the special meeting. Alarmed that the supply situation in the coming months was going to be tight due to the trends in production, he stressed that he hopes to avoid the same situation as that of 2003 when prices sky rocketed out of proportions during the Christmas holidays.

Mr. Francis Wong, via some basic lecture in economics, pointed out that the Federation already addressed the situation with the former BAI Director. Even for the sake of argument, the inferred reduction has its basis only on the supply aspect. The chart presented was simply a supply curve of the past several years. No demand curve to compare with the supply curve would make the analysis simply speculative and not categorically indicative of a shortage. (Attached is the presentation file of BAI)

Mr. Wong admitted to a shortfall in production as many raisers are finding it difficult to increase capitalization as far as investments in feeds are concerned. However he pointed out that backyard raisers are so adaptable that they can get into the business very easily. Furthermore the current technical improvements as evidenced by information from Datacon shows

a dramatic improvement in farrowing rates and survivability of animals in the past few months compared to previous years despite the rumors of TGE or Transmissible Gastro Enteritis.

Furthermore, Mr. Wong suggested that a demand model be derived so that both government and the private sector can make better decisions and strategies of production with little left to chance.

Other hog raisers also stressed that currently farm gate prices are already at PhP75 per kilo below the normal PhP85.00 a kilo a month ago. Mr. Manuel La’O stressed this downward trend in prices and confirmed that backyard farms in Rizal are selling at even lower rates. Just to prove that there has been a dramatic increase in hog production, he mentioned that feedmillers in Batangas have advised him of increase in sales of feeds by as much as 30%. Mr. Nick Briones of LIMCOMA confirmed this as did the representative from Soro-Soro, a local Batangas cooperative feedmill.

his prompted Mr. Eleria to conclude that despite the high mortality brought about by the suspected TGE outbreak, there are sufficient hogs that are available in the market. Mr. Ordoñez also pointed out that his association of backyard hog raisers has sufficient produce and this should prompt the government to do away with the idea of allowing importations.