Iloilo has to import pork free from African swine fever (ASF) to address the demand of consumers in the province as the swine sufficiency went down to 33.12 percent, records of the Provincial Veterinarian’s Office showed.
“In terms of swine inventory, we are almost short of our local production. Before ASF, our swine inventory was 277, 421. As of today, we have 75,478, a reduction of 203,672. This means more or less 73 percent of our swine inventory in the province was lost,” Provincial Veterinarian Dr. Darel Tabuada said in an interview Friday, Nov. 17.
The province was 289 percent sufficient before the ASF.
Citing the Nov. 6, 2023 data, Tabuada attributed the decline of supply to swine deaths due to ASF and farmers disposing of their stocks rather than taking the risk of being hit by the contagious disease in response to the campaign to reduce inventory.
The reduced stocks resulted in the hike in prices of hogs, which is at PHP359 per kilogram for pork and PHP214 for live weight.
“It will stabilize once we have huge stocks coming in from other provinces and countries. Considering the buying capacity of consumers, when the price gets too high, they will divert their other sources of protein, like chicken,” he added.
From January until November, the province brought in 15,064 heads and 3,420,299.5 kilograms of frozen and processed food from other provinces across the country.
There were no records yet on how many heads came from other countries.
Data also showed that 28 of the 43 local government units in the province have posted cases of ASF.
They are now working to convert the classification of municipalities in the red or infected zone to pink or buffer zone to start with the sentineling program.
Once the sentineling is successful, swine farmers could start with the repopulation.Perla Lena/PNA
